


The Fire in Her Eyes

by Imrryr



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, Femslash, No sex yet but yunno... eventually, Past Lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 01:43:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imrryr/pseuds/Imrryr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy and Faith have met before; many, many times.  A story of reconciliation, romance, and past lives.  Eventual Fuffy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AN – So, I've had this idea for a long Fuffy story for over a year now, and after much angsting and second-guessing my writing abilities I've decided to stop being such a baby and just go ahead and start it. Hopefully, this won't take years to complete, but I do tend to get distracted with other projects and I take forever to finish things, so if that sort of thing irritates you, you might wanna just leave and check back in a year or two *chuckles nervously*
> 
> This whole idea came to me after rereading Electra's 'Parallels'. And even though you certainly don't need to read her story to understand mine, you should still check it out sometime, and then go and read 'Walk the Line' cuz it's one of the best Fuffy fics I've ever read ^^
> 
> Setting: The end of season 4 and beyond, diverging more and more from canon as the years progress.
> 
> Rated M for the usual things you would expect from the Buffyverse: violence, sex, and Faith being all hot and stuff.

 

_'The power of the Slayer and all who wield it._

_Last to ancient first, we invoke thee._

_Grant us thy domain and primal strength._

_Accept us and the power we possess._

_Make us mind and heart and spirit enjoined._

_Let the hand encompass us. Do thy will.'_

  
_-_ The Enjoining Spell

...

Buffy Summers

Sunnydale. May 2, 2000.

...

At this point it was practically seared into her memory. Ever since their spectacular failure two nights ago, Buffy kept repeating the words of the enjoining spell in her mind, as if by so doing she could figure out what went so horribly wrong, despite her hopelessness when it came to all things magical.

She only really understood the basics; there were magical items of course - gourds, powders and other weird things - but the most important requirements for the spell were her three friends. Each of them were intended to add their abilities to the power of the First Slayer:

_'Willow, the spirit.'_

_'Xander, the heart.'_

_'Giles, the mind.'_

Despite how much it still hurt, she clenched her swollen fist. _'The hand.'_

With everyone's powers combined into her body, and the added strength of the First Slayer flowing through her veins, Buffy should've had at least had a _chance_ of defeating Adam. Instead, the fight went on, and on, and on, minute after grueling minute, and absolutely nothing happened beyond her butt getting thoroughly kicked. She'd never be able to put into words the despair that washed over her when it finally sunk in that the spell wasn't working. She expected to die in that hole in the ground.

What if it was all her fault somehow? She had been busy fighting - okay, not so much 'fighting' as 'distracting' - Adam as her friends performed the delicate spell in the next room. What if something she had done messed it all up?

Buffy flexed her aching fingers again. The ring and middle digits on her right hand were still badly swollen and tender. Unfortunately, they were not mending as quickly as her wounds normally did. Slayer healing didn't work so well when you suffered such a large and varied array of wounds, she supposed. Bones had been broken, muscles torn, and she had caught no less than four rounds from Adam's machine-gun hand.

Getting shot hurt a lot more than the movies made it seem.

If she hadn't been a slayer, she would've certainly died. As it was, it was a lucky thing that the underground lab hadn't been built to withstand the kind of destruction meted out when a Frankenstein terminator monster throws a slayer around the room like a rag-doll and then tries to blow her away with an arm-mounted missile launcher. Score one for government budget cuts.

Though admittedly, she could understand why the Feds might not have foreseen that particular scenario.

Even with a broken arm, Buffy had been able to drag herself out from under the mass of twisted metal and plastic panels that used to be ceiling. Adam was trapped further in, buried under the rubble but alive – no surprise there - and she could hear him struggling to dig his way out. With the lights destroyed, the facility was darker than a tomb on a moonless night. There was no time to try and finish him off, even if she had been able to do more than hop on one leg and bleed on him.

When she had rejoined her bewildered friends in the next room, it was just in time to see a vampire burst through the far door, his game-face covered in blood and his yellow eyes wild from recent kills.

Thankfully, "help" had arrived just in the nick of time... in the form of Spike.

Rescued by Spike. Now, there was a sad fact that bore repeating: Rescued. By. Spike. _Ugh_. She'd never live it down.

She reminded herself to thank him one day, and on that day she would stab him through the heart with the pointy end of her finest stake. She wasn't about to forget that the vampire had nearly gotten them all killed in order to get that chip out of his head. He had played a role in Adam's rise, however bumbling and inept his execution of that role had turned out to be.

Buffy shuddered and tried not to think of the hurtful words she had said to her friends. Maybe Spike had put the ideas in their heads - _some_ of them, at any rate - but that didn't erase the fact that they had still given voice to them.

' _It's all in the past,'_ they'd later said, but she could see in their eyes that it wasn't. Not _really_. She had been dismissive, and insulting, and angry; she'd called them all useless. You didn't just forget something like that.

Maybe in time.

Maybe.

There came a knock at her door.

She made no attempt to move from her spot on the bed. All the pain she had been feeling for the past two days had by this time dulled down to a nice, bearable ache. She didn't want to unsettle things by moving again. Instead she called out, "Yeah?"

Ugh. Even her voice sounded like it had been beaten to within an inch of its life.

The door opened and Willow's worried face peeked out from behind the door jamb. "How are you feeling?"

Buffy would've shrugged, but her shoulder was one of the many places on her body that hurt when she moved. "Great," she said with a sigh.

Willow frowned as her friend continued to stare lifelessly up at the bare, white ceiling. Without a word, she quietly shut the door behind her and joined Buffy on the bed, lying gently down beside her. Buffy was reminded of many highschool sleepovers past, except that they definitely weren't sixteen anymore. Willow's voice was tender and quiet, as if she were afraid that being too loud might cause Buffy greater injury, "Giles says he might know what went wrong... with the spell, I mean," she said.

Buffy wanted to say, _'Screw the spell. Let's all just leave and never come back. Let the army handle the problem they created,'_ but she didn't. All that came out of her mouth was, "Neat."

"He says if you're feeling better you should come over. Your mom even said we can use the car, provided you don't drive, of course."

The teasing remark went completely over Buffy's head. "Okay," she mumbled.

Willow's frown only grew and there was another long, awkward pause. "Oh, and Riley's out of intensive care."

Again, the slayer's response was less than enthusiastic. "Great."

"Buffy?"

The slayer blinked, she knew that tone of voice.

"Are you okay? Like _really_ okay?"

Buffy shook her head. She had never felt less okay in her entire life. And then, for some reason that particular realization brought about even more distant memories: memories of Angelus' reign of terror, then the night she stabbed Faith in the chest, and finally the fight she'd had with her friends only days before; a fight that had her going after Adam _alone_. Had she actually succeeded in finding him then, she would've died.

She blinked away tears, hoping Willow wouldn't notice. Now she felt even _less_ okay. Wonderful.

Never had she felt so alone, or so hopeless. With the help of her friends, Buffy had always won against anything the demon world threw at her. She had defeated the Master, Angelus, the mayor; things had always worked out, but not this time. This time it really was hopeless.

"Oh, Buffy." Before she realized what was happening, Willow was leaning over and hugging her tightly. Buffy yelped in pain like a kicked puppy.

Willow was off the bed in a flash. "Oh, God, Buffy! I am _so_ sorry."

The last thing Willow probably expected was for Buffy to start laughing, but that's exactly what happened. It started as a chuckle, but quickly grew into real honest to God laughter that left her with tears running down her cheeks by the time she calmed herself down.

If Willow had appeared to be concerned for her friend before, she now looked like she was one step away from calling the local asylum.

"I can't believe you hugged me," Buffy said, still chuckling despite the pain coming from nearly every part of her bruised covered body. "I look like a prune that's been run through a meat-grinder."

Willow was actually smiling now. It was so good to see. "I'm sorry. I just wanted..." She stopped, as if to gather her thoughts, "You're not alone, Buffy. I want you to know that."

"And I meant what I said before, Will. I love you. I never should've said those things. And I should've been there for you." She was thinking specifically about her friend's relationship with Tara. A real friend would've been there for her, noticing the subtle changes in her best friend's behavior, offering support, instead of running off with her boyfriend and his military buddies. How bad a friend must she have been if Willow was afraid to confide in her after all they had been through together?

Buffy detected the slightest flinch in Willow's muscles, like she was thinking of hugging her again but quickly thought better of it.

"I love you too. Let's never fight again, all right?"

"Deal," Buffy replied, offering Willow the less bruised of her two hands to shake.

"Oh, Tara said she wants to help us this time. Anya too... for some reason."

That was the first good news she'd had in days, but did she really want to risk everyone's lives a second time? "I don't want people to get hurt because of this, because of _me_."

Willow placed a hand gently on Buffy's arm only after receiving an nod that it was okay to do so, "The people who love you are going to stand beside you, whether you want them to or not."

The old Buffy Summers would've run off on her own, like she always did, but Buffy didn't want that anymore. Being alone sucked. She sighed but smiled when she did it. Willow seemed relieved.

"So, we should really see Giles today," she reminded.

Buffy's stomach rumbled. "Do you think we could eat something first?"

Willow visibly perked up. "You're hungry?"

"Yeah." Buffy gingerly pushed herself onto her feet. Everything still hurt, but somehow she was actually feeling better, a lot better. "Maybe a sandwich... or three."

...

Giles hadn't raised his eyes from the enormous, musty spellbook on the kitchen counter even once since Buffy and Willow arrived. He looked in desperate need of a shave, and appeared to be wearing the same gray wool sweater she'd seen him in three days ago. Tara, Xander and Anya were already there, gathered in the living room, looking at least reasonably clean and well rested. "Well," Giles was saying, "the problem is, the enjoining spell requires the presence of the slayer."

Wow. Talk about stating the obvious. "Uh, _hello_ ," Buffy said, gesturing to herself, "Slayer. Right here."

Giles shook his head. "It's not that simple, unfortunately. To my knowledge, in the entire history of the slayer line there has never been an instance where more than one slayer has been active at any one time."

"But," Buffy said, deflating a bit, "I am _a_ slayer; the oldest slayer in fact."

"Yes, but the slayer line no longer runs _through_ you. When you died Kendra was called, and when she died Faith was called. Faith now embodies the slayer line, not you."

"So, if I died - _again_ \- you don't think another slayer would be called?"

"The Council doesn't appear to believe so... although, admittedly they've never been very forthcoming with information about such things, even when we were in communication."

Well, that was kind of a relief. Imagine what would happen if the council could create new slayers just by temporarily killing the active ones over and over again. Dying once was more than enough for one lifetime, Buffy thought. Then she supposed that if they had Faith, the Council could actually still do something like that.

 _Faith_. Whenever she thought of her sister slayer, the first thing to come to mind was those haunted brown eyes of hers as she stood in that downpour in L.A. Buffy had hoped that over time she'd simply forget her, but four months on and the sight and the pain were still as vivid as ever.

A sense of dread fell over her. "So, what you're saying is..."

Giles sighed. "Yes. In order for the spell to work, we need Faith."

Willow crossed her arms, her expression turning decidedly sour.

Buffy fell into the plusher of the two easy-chairs. After her large meal, her body didn't ache nearly as badly as it had earlier. Sometimes she forgot that even slayer healing worked best when you helped it along. "I take it you don't mean we should pray."

Giles' eyes met hers for half a second, long enough to express his predictable annoyance, "No, I do not."

Buffy sighed. "So we're just going to, what, break her out of jail?" Images of getting shot at by security guards flashed through her mind. Like hell she'd go through all that just to break _Faith_ of all people out of a place she so obviously belonged in.

"Something a little less dramatic than that, I think," Giles replied. He nodded in the direction of the living room table, "I have all the reagents for a teleportation spell right over there."

Buffy's brow knotted in confusion. In addition to a large glass jar of salt and several silk pouches of unidentifiable powders and stones, the required materials for a teleportation spell also apparently included a half-empty bottle of whiskey and an autographed copy of Queen's _A Night at the Opera._

Willow had taken to pacing the length of Giles' living room. To be honest, the anger radiating off of her was actually kind of scary; even Tara looked put off by it. "No one _needs_ Faith," she said, her voice oozing bitterness. "And don't jails usually notice when their dangerous inmates go missing?"

Tara spoke up for the first time, "There might be a way around that."

Buffy didn't miss how even now Willow's expression softened when Tara spoke. "What do you mean?"

"We could do a glamour spell. If someone were willing to take Faith's place -"

" _Take Faith's place_?" All eyes turned back to Willow, who's expression only turned apologetic at the hurt look on Tara's face. But even then she continued, "Who's crazy enough to want to hang out in a prison, pretending to be _Faith_ of all people, all while Little Miss Unstable goes free?"

Tara blanched. "Well... um..."

"You don't know what she's like," Willow said, shaking her head dismissively.

"I would like everyone to keep in mind that there is nothing _keeping_ Faith in prison," Giles said, matter-of-factly. "Any slayer would be more than capable of breaking out of such a place."

Buffy frowned. She hadn't ever really considered that. Why _would_ someone like Faith just waste her life away behind prison walls? She had always been energetic, to say the least. Even when they had been friends of a sort, it was always difficult to keep the girl in one place for very long. And now she was locked up, constantly being told where to go, what to do, and how long to do it.

It didn't make sense. What was she planning? It had to be something, right? Angel must've lost his mind; he had no idea what Faith was really like.

Meanwhile, Willow and Giles were still arguing. "She should have armed guards on her at all times!"

"We're talking about a state prison here, Willow, not Azkaban."

"Azkaban?"

Caught out by the question, Giles took off his glasses and began rubbing them with the hem of his shirt. "It's a, uh, magical prison... from _Harry Potter_."

The ticking of the grandfather clock seemed to echo off the walls as everyone went silent, and even Buffy couldn't stop herself from smiling. Giles read _Harry Potter_. She'd file that fact away in case she ever needed to blackmail him.

Xander was grinning. "You haven't read _The Prisoner of Azkaban_ yet, Will? And you call yourself a witch."

"Hey!" Willow squeaked, suddenly defensive. "I read the first two books. It's just I've been really busy this year with school," she glanced at Tara, "and, you know, _stuff_. Besides, witches in popular fantasy books are always portrayed _so_ inaccurately _._ "

This room was quickly reaching critical-mass of nerdiness and Buffy had to wave her arms to grab Giles' attention, "So, let's say I agree to your crazy plan. How long _is_ this all going to take anyway?"

"Well," he said, gathering his notes off the counter. "Before we attempt the enjoining ritual again, I would recommend waiting for at least a day after we perform the glamour and teleportation spells. Such spells are fairly draining experiences in their own rights."

"Wait," Xander said, "If you can do all that, why not just teleport Adam to the moon or something?"

Again, the whole room went quiet. Giles pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "There are several reasons why we can't do that; the biggest issue being that some of the demon parts Adam was assembled from are immune to such magic."

Unfazed, Xander continued, "What if you just found a big rock and teleported it over his head?" He slapped his hands together for emphasis. "Then, boom, problem solved."

This time, the watcher frowned. Everyone watched him intently as he seemed to consider the idea, but eventually he shook his head again. "No. Firstly, teleportation is not instantaneous, nor is it completely silent. A demon like Adam would likely be perceptive enough to sense an enormous boulder appearing above his head and have time to get out of the way. Second, if we perhaps had an entire coven of witches here, then just maybe we would be able to teleport a rock massive enough to actually do some damage to him."

"Darn. And here I was hoping we could kill Adam in a completely anti-climatic fashion."

Willow smiled. "Arch-villain felled by giant rock. That would definitely be one for the history books."

"Well," Buffy said to Giles, "Why not call up all your witchy friends, tell them to get on their broomsticks and fly on over here? Then we could do it, right?"

Xander seemed surprised and pleased that Buffy was actually going along with one of his ideas, but Giles looked anything but pleased and Tara was gaping at her like she'd just insulted her grandmother.

"First of all Buffy, that's a horribly offensive stereotype, please refrain from saying such things in my presence again."

Both Willow and Tara nodded in unison.

"Sorry," Buffy mumbled.

Giles continued, "I've been unable to reach any of the covens back home, and," he added bitterly, "the Council would rather see Adam destroy half the country than stoop to providing us with aid. We cannot wait for help; the longer we sit here arguing, the more people will die."

Anya tilted her head, "Oh!" she said, eyes brightening, "That's a subtle hint that Xander should stop coming up with unhelpful ideas, right?"

Again, Giles sighed. "Not as subtle as I intended, unfortunately."

"So, that's it?" Buffy asked. "We bring Faith here, force her to take part in the enjoining ritual and then I go kick Adam's butt?"

Giles shrugged. Buffy wasn't sure if she'd ever seen him make such a gesture before in her life. He must've been really, really tired if even his British reserve was beginning to crack.

"But don't we need Xander for the enjoining spell?" Willow asked.

"Not necessarily," Giles said, barely stifling a yawn. "I believe Tara could fill his role adequately enough, and her magical abilities might also prove useful in prolonging the effects."

Xander slumped in his chair, "You know, this isn't doing much for my self-esteem."

Anya stood behind him, rubbing his shoulders. "It won't be so bad. Remember what happened to the girl in the movie we watched last night? She went to jail and really enjoyed herself." Her brow crinkled in thought, "Actually, come to think of it, all the prisoners seemed to like her - like, _really_ like her - even the guards. Is prison really like that?"

All around the room, everyone's expressions ranged from somewhat horrified to enormously so. Xander quickly silenced her, his own face beet red, "Remember what we talked about, Anya? We don't speak to others about the movies we watch after midnight."

"But it's relevant to our discussion!"

Buffy frowned as Xander and Ayna bickered. She already knew far more about the sexual goings-on between those two than she'd ever wanted.

"You'd be there for three or four days," Giles was saying. "We might be able to work out some form of financial compensation for your time."

Anya gasped and shook her boyfriend's shoulders excitedly. "Take it! Take the money!"

"H – How much are we talking here, Giles?" Xander asked. He seemed to be seriously considering the idea. "I won't work for less than minimum wage."

"Minimum wage it is then," Giles said happily.

With her slayer hearing, Buffy could easily pick up the words Anya whispered into Xander's ear, "Honey, that's less than six dollars an hour."

"Oh... right."

"Still," Willow interjected, "That would come to over five-hundred dollars for four twenty-four hour days. That's not so bad, I guess."

Anya beamed in agreement, but then her expression suddenly turned horrified, "Wait!" she squeaked. "We can't let my Xander go in there!" Buffy let out a thankful sigh. Finally, the woman was talking sense. "He'll be surrounded by desperate women!"

Xander grinned as the revelation dawned on him; stuck in a clone of Faith's body and surrounded by women. Buffy put her head in her hands.

Meanwhile, Giles was rapidly losing his patience, "I do hope you both realize that life in a women's correctional facility is nowhere near as erotic as you seem to think it is."

Buffy's frown deepened. She also would've preferred to have gone through the rest of her life without ever hearing Giles utter the word 'erotic.'


	2. Chapter 2

  
_"Ignoscito sæpe alter, nunquam tibi."_  
 _"Forgive others often, yourself never."_  
\- Publilius Syrus

...

Faith Lehane

The Southern California Institution for Women. May 2, 2000.

...

Faith stood alone on the edge of a high cliff, a gentle breeze blowing through her hair as she looked out over a dark, forested valley and the wide river meandering slowly through it. The sun was setting and dark clouds filled the sky, but there was no sign of rain.

She knew from long experience that this was only a dream, but she took the time to enjoy it nonetheless. So many of her dreams were unpleasant these days. It was a pleasure just to be free and escape that feeling of being hemmed in from all sides, even if was only for a little while.

And she had to admire just how real it all felt; from the cool air brushing against her skin, to the fresh smells of the trees and grasses, to the myriad sounds of birds, crickets, and even wolves. It all made her slayer dreams feel like passing shadows in comparison. Hell, sometimes she wondered if even Sunnydale had ever felt this real. Of course, she'd never bothered to really pay attention to that sort of thing when she'd had the chance. Funny how being locked in a cage twenty-four seven taught you to appreciate stuff like that.

Faith couldn't help but keep scanning the horizon though. For slayers, even the simplest dream could be loaded with subtle yet important meaning. Or at least that's what her dead watcher used to say. A dream might be a prophetic warning about an upcoming apocalypse, or it could be those unsettling sorts of experiences where Faith inhabited the body of a slayer long dead, facing off against vampires and demons and other things she would need a Giles-sized vocabulary to describe.

In Boston, she certainly had plenty of both, but for some reason after Faith had come to Sunnydale her dreams changed. Sure, there were still frequent glimpses of the lives of past slayers, or of her own childhood, or of Buffy stabbing the mayor as Faith picnicked on the grass with him, but there were also these new dreams where she was just... _there_... someplace she could swear she'd never been before, beholding a world that was alien yet still somehow familiar.

It was all just a little bit weird, but hey, at least no one was trying to kill her.

These days, she couldn't really ask for more than that.

Now sitting on the cold granite outcrop, she glanced to her right and sure enough Buffy was there too, perched not that far away, hands behind her back, feet dangling over the edge, admiring the view.

In these quiet, pleasant dreams, B was always there. It was the weirdest thing.

Of course, it wasn't _actually_ Buffy, they weren't sharing some kind of profound slayer dream or something – that had only ever happened once – and as far as Faith knew, B was busy living it up as a college student at that very moment, attending parties, screwing the BF, and generally doing her utmost to forget that her sister-slayer had ever existed.

Last year, after another one of those unusual dreams - one that involved a city of stone columns and red tiled roofs, an erupting volcano, and a demon of pure flame – Faith had even asked Buffy about it, but no, B been pretty insistent that Faith seldom featured in _her_ dreams, and when she was there, well, the setting was _always_ Sunnydale and they were usually just slaying vamps or something.

It figured. Vampire ex-boyfriend and mystical sacred calling aside, Buffy had a tendency to be annoyingly conventional.

Either that or she was lying.

Faith sniffed the air again. Burning wood. There was always fire in these dreams, and in the distance she could now see smoke billowing up from the trees. Sometimes there were torches, other times entire cities were aflame, but always there was fire. She had no idea why.

Still, the forest remained. It seemed ancient, as old and eternal as the mountain she sat on, yet an inescapable sense of loss fell over her. _'Soon this place will be gone,'_ she thought. Somehow, she knew it was true.

Buffy still hadn't met her gaze, but she was smiling and kicking her legs as she stared out at the wilderness beyond. "I think I'll like it here."

"I'm glad," Faith mumbled. Another thing that proved this wasn't a typical slayer dream: it actually felt like she had some control over the words that came out of her mouth. None of that 'Little Miss Muffet' crap. It had been almost a year since that shared dream with Buffy, and the words she'd spoken then still made zero sense to her. When the fuck did she ever speak in nursery rhymes?

Unfortunately, Buffy's responses were another matter entirely. Her lips quirked into a faint smile, "It won't be the same, but that's okay. Everything here changes. Everything except us, it seems."

Faith frowned. "I don't get what you mean, B."

It was the first time the woman actually looked at her and her green eyes seemed to mirror the forest below. "You will, soon."

Faith found that oddly reassuring, until she realized that behind Buffy was an advancing wall of flame being carried along by a stiffening breeze. Trees caught fire, crackling like they were kindling and thick black smoke burned Faith's throat. She coughed and began to panic. This was way too real, even for one of her crazy-ass dreams. As she jumped to her feet, Buffy only looked casually over her shoulder. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," she said. "You can't stop it anyway."

In just a few seconds, they were surrounded by fire on every side except for the cliff face itself. Down below, it seemed like the entirety of the ancient forest was ablaze.

"The wind is blowing," B said happily, stretching her legs again. "It feels nice."

Trapped between the inferno and a sheer drop, Faith watched in disbelief as Buffy just sat there without a care in the world as the flames licked her hair until all she could see was fire.

...

Faith awoke to find herself lying on her cot in a cold sweat, her single bed sheet dumped on the concrete floor. It was dark. She groaned. _'Fucking dreams.'_

Her head hit the pillow and she sighed. There weren't any clocks in her cell, but it must've only been an hour or so after lights out, not the least because she could still pick up hushed conversations from the rest of the cellblock with her enhanced hearing. Normally, she wouldn't dream of falling asleep at 7pm like some kind of old lady, but her sleeping schedule was all out of whack these days.

That was the slayer's doing. It wanted out. It wanted to hunt, and as a result Faith's nights tended to be lonely, restless affairs.

During the day she had been catching what little sleep she could, and it helped that she'd already developed a reputation of sorts, mostly at the expense of one chick who wouldn't take a goddamn hint and keep her hands to herself.

Not that Faith was worried about becoming someone's bitch per se - like _that_ would ever happen - she just didn't like clingy chicks, especially since the ones here only wanted something from you. Granted, the nicer ones mostly just wanted companionship, someone to talk to, someone to care for who would actually care about them in return, but even that sort of thing was beyond Faith's limited capabilities. She didn't do relationships.

It also hadn't escaped her notice that many of the girls in relationships here were getting used and had no idea it was happening. Some were used for sex, some for access to shit from outside, others to hurt ex-girlfriends either emotionally or physically. Faith could recognize the latter easiest of all. The mayor had used her to murder people, and to hurt Buffy, all in exchange for power and money and what seemed at the time like love.

Faith had enough of being used; it was why she was in this shithole in the first place... well, part of the reason anyway. It wasn't like she'd been completely unaware of what joining up with the mayor would entail. Her conscience had bugged her constantly then and throughout all the months she'd served the guy. She had just chosen to ignore it.

And really though, punching Deb in the face and being generally unapproachable aside, she was mostly just known as the quiet one. Funny thing that; she had never been particularly quiet when she'd been free.

So, throughout the night and most of the day it was just her and her annoying thoughts. Prison life gave you far too much time to think and reflect, and adapting to that was proving harder than she ever imagined. Normally, when her thoughts turned dark Faith would just go out, preferably to a club, but often to a cemetery where she put everything out of her mind and burnt off all that excess energy she always seemed to have by making a dent in the local demon population.

That's what was so cool about becoming a slayer; she had a _reason_ to be out at night, a purpose of sorts, something beyond a simple desire to quiet her nagging thoughts over whatever her current shitty situation was, or even worse, those memories of growing up that were best left forgotten.

Her first watcher had talked about that a lot; having a purpose.

Faith hadn't really paid attention to her lectures at the time. She was fifteen, and just glad to have a regular meal and a roof over her head during those few hours when she'd actually turn up at her watcher's doorstep, but she never stopped going out and partying, nor did she stop going home with random people.

It was impossible to avoid her watcher's judging eye when she stumbled through the door at ten o'clock in the morning, but though Faith had never said so, it was nice that there was someone out there who seemed to give a shit.

Naturally, it all had to end.

She had to rely on herself. It was the one lesson she'd learned growing up in Boston, and her watcher's death only reinforced it.

However, what she had found in Sunnydale had really thrown her for a loop. There she met Buffy and her rather odd collection of friends. Slayers weren't supposed to have a posse and it was hard to know what to make of Willow, and Xander and the rest of them. They were all right, at first, but also kind of, well, _nerdy_. One moment she wanted to get closer to them, to be accepted, and the next she wanted nothing to do with them.

With one exception, though; she always wanted to be around Buffy. It was clear from the beginning that there was something special about her. Buffy drew people in without even realizing she was doing it. Giles, Willow, Oz, Xander, even Cordelia, they all loved her in their own way, and it wasn't long before Faith discovered that she loved her too. In retrospect, sitting here in a cell with plenty of time to dwell on it, the attraction had been there from the start, but then Faith had never been particularly perceptive. At the time she had just thought Buffy was a total fox.

A completely and utterly straight fox, but hey, there was always hope. There were more than a few girls in Sunnydale who turned out to be not so straight after Faith was finished with them.

So, yeah, in Sunnydale she was protecting people, fighting the good fight and all that. Life was good - well, _kind of_ good - and she was starting to get Buffy to let loose a little. At the end there were even nights where it seemed like Buffy might not have been quite as straight as she let on.

Then, of course, Faith had fucked it all up.

Not the killing of Finch - that had been an accident - but the way she had handled it, going immediately into self-protection mode and damn the consequences. Well, that had quickly turned into a nightmare.

The mayor had offered her a way out of it all. He cared about what happened to her, like _really_ cared. Not that sort of caring that Giles and Buffy seemed to offer - the kind that involved lots of secrets and only ringing you up when they needed you for something. No, the mayor was different... or so she had thought.

In the end - big surprise - he was using her too. Wilkens needed someone to do his dirty work, and Faith did it all with a willingness that disgusted her now. However, even after Buffy had stabbed her in the gut to save her boyfriend, when the time finally came to choose between helping the mayor realize his life-long ambition or helping Buffy destroy him, she had chosen Buffy. She couldn't help it. In their shared dream, she told Buffy of the mayor's weakness and B duly went out and killed him at the moment of his ascension.

The mayor had his weakness, Faith had hers.

He was dead now, without ever knowing that Faith had betrayed him. It still hurt a little. Thankfully, her dreams were the only place where she could see the betrayal on her surrogate father's face.

The next time she saw him was on eight months later on a videotape.

'Go out with a bang,' he had said.

She looked up at the drab off-white ceiling that showed more concrete than paint. Some bang.

Even if she hadn't turned herself in and had instead run across the country while in possession of Buffy's body; what kind of life was that? Maybe the mayor had loved her as a daughter... but it was a twisted sort of love if that was the inheritance he left for her.

Faith blinked. Most every night was like this; a trip though her less pleasant memories, constantly reminding herself of every single thing she had done wrong in her short life, all combined with an inexorable feeling of restlessness and a desire to run away and never look back.

Deep inside, the slayer yearned for freedom. It wanted to hunt, to do what it was born to do, but now it was trapped in what was essentially a cage of Faith's making.

Sometimes she wished she could've somehow given the slayer free reign from the start; fighting vampires and demons on her own until she grew so tired she could think to do nothing more than limp into bed in the morning, only to start all over again the next night. She yearned to be out in the open. No walls, no friends, no attachments, _no thoughts_ ; just her and a stake, saving the world.

Getting involved with others only ever seemed to end in disaster for all concerned.

After nineteen years, Faith figured she would've learned the lesson that everyone was out to use you.

She sighed. Well, everyone except for Angel, it seemed.

Now sitting up in her cot, Faith shook her head and grumbled to herself as her bare feet slid across the cold floor.

Angel had visited her just the other day, and already she was falling back on old ways of thinking.

...

"It just... sucks. You know?" she was saying into the phone. "Everyone's out there, moving on with their lives, and it doesn't matter what I do in here. It won't change what they think of me. I'll always be the girl that fucked up. The psycho who killed some people and wound up in prison."

From the other side of the glass, Angel was staring back at her, doing a far better job of looking like he gave a shit than the prison shrink ever did, "What they think about you isn't what's important, Faith."

She huffed. _Of course_ it was important.

Faith regretted a lot of things - what she did to Angel, and Wesley, and Xander, and several dozen other people besides - but every time she thought about Buffy it left her with this horrible ache in the pit of her stomach, like she had destroyed something incredibly precious and important but couldn't quite put a name on what it was.

"Obsessing over your mistakes, that's no way to go through life. Take it from me."

She smiled. "Yeah, but you're not technically alive."

Angel rolled his eyes, "You'd be surprised how often people remind me of that."

The silence that followed didn't last very long. Angel was seldom deterred whenever Faith tried to change the subject. "You can't let Buffy's opinion of you determine how you feel about yourself."

God. How the fuck did he learn to read her so well? If only she could get out of here and do _something_ ; something to show B that she had changed. Maybe then she could look at herself in the mirror and not feel completely disgusted.

Then Faith was reminded of that one time she'd actually convinced her mom to go through rehab. They were both so proud when she finally got out. She was like a new woman; a real mother. Life was great - for a few weeks anyway. That was when Faith found the not-so-well hidden liquor bottles in the kitchen. After the shouting match that followed, her mom fell into another one of her bouts of depression, and before long she had lost the only real job she'd held in five years and they were right back to square one. Except soon things got even worse…

Would that be Faith's destiny too? Would she walk out of this place only to pick up right where she left off? Would she let the world swallow her up again?

"Faith?"

She looked back up at him. "Hmm?"

"Where were you just now?"

She sighed, "No place good."

" _Faith_."

"I don't wanna talk about it."

There must've been something in her tone, because Angel actually did let it drop that time.

Still, he stayed there, silently, as the minutes ticked by. "You should consider talking about it, whatever it is you're keeping inside." At Faith's dubious expression he added, "You don't have to talk to _me_ , but you should trying talking to _someone_. It might help."

She shook her head. "No one gives a shit. Not even the shrink they make us talk to every week."

Angel stared at her in silence, almost pouting until Faith finally gave in, "Fine, fine. _Almost_ no one gives a shit. Happy?"

The corner of his lip inched up. "Have you given any thought to what we talked about before?"

"The letters? Ugh, no thanks." Three weeks ago, Angel had suggested Faith try writing a letter to someone back in Sunnydale. He had meant either Joyce or Giles, but the only person she could think of actually writing to would be Buffy herself. And what the fuck could she possibly even say? _'Dear Buffy, Hey, what's up? Look, I'm really sorry about the whole body-swap thing, and sleeping with your boyfriend, and almost killing your previous boyfriend, and-'_

" _Faith_."

"Sorry."

"I didn't mean you should actually send them, you know? Just get your feelings out."

Or how about, _'Hey B, remember how I staked that guy and you tried to help me but I figured it'd be easier if I just blamed it all on you? Wasn't that a riot?'_

"You're thinking about Buffy again, aren't you?"

Faith ran a hand through her hair. "How is it you always seem to know what's going on in my head?"

"I've been around for two-hundred years. Had a lot of practice when it comes to reading body language, and Buffy has a way of getting to people, as I was reminded last night."

"You went to see her?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah. It didn't go so well. Apparently, she has a new boyfriend."

"Oh, right," Faith muttered, feigning a degree of ignorance. She hadn't told Angel about everything she'd done in Buffy's body, or in this case, every _one_. "Captain Beefstick."

Angel chuckled. "The name suits him."

Faith laughed too. "So, what? You get into a fight with him or something?" Her smiled dropped when Angel only chuckled nervously in response. "You didn't?"

"Yep. Not exactly my finest hour. Buffy had to separate us."

She shook her head. Exactly how many centuries needed to pass before men grew out of the 'fighting the ex's boyfriend' stage? "So what? You trying to rekindle the old romance?"

Angel's eyes widened a fraction. " _No_. No. I came to the conclusion long ago that it wouldn't work between us. It's why I left Sunnydale in the first place."

Faith wasn't exactly sure why Angel was confiding in her. Maybe he was in as much need of a shoulder to lean on as she was. "So, why'd you go see her?"

"To apologize, and offer my help against the Initiative."

"The Initiative?" The name sounded vaguely familiar...

"Yeah, I've run into them before." Angel was looking over Faith's shoulder at the clock on the wall behind her. "But never mind that. The important thing was she forgave me, Faith, for what I said in L.A. She forgave me for sticking up for you. She forgave me for everything."

Then the phone went dead. Time was up.

...

That was the lesson the big guy had been struggling to teach her for months now. People _weren't_ all the same; they could change, they could surprise you, and not just in the negative way Faith was used to. And eventually, who knows, they might even forgive you.

She put her head in her hands. This sucked. Having no freedom to get away from her thoughts sucked. Knowing that Buffy hated her guts, and that it would be at least twenty-five years before Faith could even begin to make it right... that _really_ sucked.

Faith let out another deep breath. Here she was, wasting what everyone said would be the best years of her life in prison.

Every day for Buffy was another day fighting the good fight, making a difference, and being surrounded by loved ones. Every day for Faith was another day to be forgotten, another reminder that she'd fucked it all up, a day that passed without anyone outside these walls giving a shit whether she lived or died.

Okay, anyone _except for Angel_.

Fuck, she could use a smoke. Sometimes she just wanted to tear her hair out. This place was driving her mad.

But on the other hand, the prospect of actually going back out there, back to the real world, was beginning to frighten her. With the benefit of hindsight and months of self reflection, Faith could see just what she had become in the weeks and months after Finch's death. She didn't like that person. She didn't ever want to go down that road again.

But could she trust herself not to? In the end, was she really any different from the girl who had tried her hardest to ruin Buffy's life?

No, she wasn't.

She stared at her hands. In the end, she would always be Faith. No amount of penance could change who she was.

This was where she truly belonged; safely locked up. If nothing she did could ever make it up to Buffy - the real Buffy, not the one in her head - then the least she could do was suffer for what she had done. After all, that's what prison was for, right?

She glanced at the tiny hand-mirror lying propped up on her small plastic table then immediately slapped it down. Hair in disarray, skin losing its color, muscles turning soft from little use. Even in the dark, she looked like _shit_.

Faith fell back onto the bed. It was going to be another one of those nights. Gradually, the whispers of her fellow inmates died down completely until the only thing she could hear was the beating of her own heart. Strangely, it was actually dark in her cell now, like _really_ dark, not nightlight dark. Perhaps the lights in the cellblock were out?

Hmm. Maybe she'd actually be able to get a decent night's sleep for a change.

She steadied her breathing and did her best to clear her mind. Before long, her eyes drifted shut only to shoot open again. A light was shining from the center of her cell, just hovering in midair like some kind of weird magical floating orb thing.

"The fuck is -"

For a few moments, Faith just laid there, mesmerized by the light as it remained fixed in front of her, shining like a star; a star that was growing inexorably larger and brighter. Finally, her instincts kicked in and she rolled off the cot and onto the floor. Scrambling under the thing, she dove for the door on the far side of the cell, determined to pull the whole thing off its hinges if need be. That was probably a bit much to ask in her current state, but in the end it didn't matter because there was no door to be found. She spun on her heels. Despite all the light, the concrete walls of her cell were now nothing more than an inky black void that she couldn't so much as punch a fist through.

She knew that because it was the next thing she tried.

"Son of a -," Faith shook her stinging hand as she backed up against the black, solid wall where the door used to be.

Not only was the light shining brighter than a hundred watt bulb, it was still expanding, pulsating in size and brightness, her cot and tiny desk lost behind it. The ionized air began to swirl around her until it felt like she was trapped inside a miniature tornado, scattering what little she owned all over the cell. Then something grew from the very center of - of whatever the hell this thing was. She blinked. Deep inside the orb, she saw the interior of another room, one complete with a table and sofa, only upside down and dimly lit.

As it grew, it began to look more and more like the kind of setup a stuffy old British dude might have; fancy carpet, heavy oak furniture, wall to wall bookshelves. Squinting from the brightness, Faith could just make out the silhouettes of people gathered round, as if waiting for something... or someone. Had the council caught up to her? Had they finally come to the conclusion that a state prison wouldn't contain Faith should she decide to go rogue again?

"Sons of bitches," she muttered. The last thing she wanted was to be in the 'care' of a bunch of strangers who looked on her as little more than a weapon, and a defective one at that. What would they do with her? Experiment on her? Erase her memory? Kill her? _Fuck_. Angel wasn't going to come to the rescue this time.

Her body flush against the wall, the small notebook she kept hit her in the face before rejoining the swirling mass of paper, clothing, and bits of trash. Now the glowing ball of light took up practically the entire room. She could feel the thing pulling her in, and her hands felt instinctively for something, anything, to hold on to.

There was nothing.

The next thing she knew there was a crack like thunder and she was falling into oblivion.


	3. Chapter 3

“For in spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody. The essential substance of every thought and feeling remains incommunicable, locked up in the impenetrable strong-room of the individual soul and body. Our life is a sentence of perpetual solitary confinement.”

\- Aldous Huxley

...

Sunnydale.  May 2nd, 2000.

...

If this was another dream, it was a particularly shitty one.

Faith had no time to find her bearings before she collapsed onto the hardwood floor, clutching her stomach in agony.  “Son of a bitch,” she muttered, barely suppressing the desire to vomit as a heavy coat was quickly thrown over her.  It was only then that she realized she was completely naked.

Slightly less surprising was the sound of Giles' familiar reserved voice, “Unfortunately, one of the side-effects of the teleportation spell is a profound sense of vertigo.  It should soon pass.”

"Teleportation spell," Faith repeated over the ringing in her ears, her eyes screwed shut again as she willed the world to stop spinning, "And my clothes?"

“That... was not supposed to happen.”

"Good to know,” she grumbled as she pushed herself to her knees.  A circle of salt and evenly spaced candles surrounded her on the floor.  Giles must've learned some new tricks while she was away.

After one last bout of coughing, the roiling in her stomach calmed enough for Faith to rise warily to her feet, covering her naked body with Giles' oversized coat while struggling to maintain some semblance of dignity.  Every day she had to shower in front of dozens of other inmates and get patted down by the skeevy prison guards.  If she had any modesty before, it was completely gone by now, but still, there was no reason why some old watcher dude should get a peek.

Then she looked up and discovered that her audience consisted of a lot more than just Giles.

There she was, Buffy Summers, in the flesh, leaning against the wall, her expression completely unreadable.  Her face and hands were crossed with cuts and marred with faint bruises, and there was a bad wound over her right eye.  Faith had looked like that once, right after her first encounter with Kakistos.  Their eyes met, but Buffy didn’t scowl, or sneer, or do anything that Faith expected her to do.  She just stared back blankly.

It was incredibly unnerving.

Meanwhile, Willow, Willow's girlfriend What's-her-face, and some other blonde-haired chick she didn't recognize were all sitting on the couch together, watching, and waiting, and judging.

Wonderful.  What was this, the world's most overdue intervention?

Faith dropped into an easy-chair and wrapped the coat more tightly around herself.  She frowned.  The chair smelled like the coat, musty, like it belonged in a library.  And who knows, perhaps Giles had fished it out of the ruins of the Sunnydale High library himself.  That would help explain all the damaged books he had stacked against the walls of his living room.

“Glad you could join us,” he said with the faintest hint of a smile, somehow managing to sound like he meant it.

Willow, on the other hand, looked as though she was trying to crush Faith’s head with her mind.  “That makes one of us.”

Thankfully, Giles continued as if she wasn’t even there, “I don’t think you’ve met Tara and Anya,” he said, gesturing to the couch.

Faith waved half-heartedly.  She vaguely recalled meeting, and insulting, Tara once before while in Buffy’s body.  Anya she didn’t recognize at all, but there was something about her that sent Faith’s slayer senses off - not at vamp or demon levels, or anything - but there was definitely something unusual about her; or in other words, she was another perfect addition to Buffy’s little circle of misfits.

Meanwhile, as she leaned against the wall looking like she’d rather be anywhere else, Buffy remained thankfully silent as Giles inexplicably handed Faith a mug of tea... Faith, the girl who had tried to ruin all their lives.  She wanted to laugh at how awkward this all was, but yeah, that probably wouldn’t go over well.  "So..." she drawled before taking a sip, "what's going on?"

Willow huffed, with an eye roll added in for good measure, while Giles sat down calmly in the chair opposite, cup in hand.  "We have a bit of a situation here, and could use your help."

Ah, so that was it.  Not even a murder rap could keep her from being called up to help Buffy and her friends.  Awesome.

Unwanted memories of last year flashed through her mind, but Faith did her best not to let her irritation show.  If the Scoobies wanted her to do their dirty work and then forget all about her afterwards, just like old times, who was she to argue?  She could do it for the rest of her life and still not make up for the all the wrongs she'd committed.

"All right," Faith said with a sigh.  "What do you want me to do?"

Giles slipped easily into watcher-mode, explaining just what had happened over the past several months.  Faith knew bits of it already, from those few days immediately following her waking from her coma, but evidently the situation was far more serious than she had assumed.  There was a monster out there, a Frankenstein-type creature assembled from the most deadly bits of all the most powerful demons Sunnydale had to offer.  She had to give the hellmouth credit; it certainly knew how to keep upping the ante.

"So, I help you guys with this spell, Buffy gets some kind of crazy slayer power, and Adam dies?"

"Put succinctly, yes," Giles said.

She frowned in thought, "I don't really know anything about magic."

"That won't be a problem, I assure you."

" _Okay_ ,” Faith drawled, “but what about the prison?"  The clock on the wall now read 11:17.  “In about forty-five minutes the midnight watch is going to realize I'm not in my cell."

Giles nodded in understanding.  "I've procured someone at considerable expense to take your place," he said, which earned him a glare from Willow.

Faith blinked.  Was it her, or did Giles' plan sound kind of ridiculous?  More ridiculous than usual, at any rate.  "I don't really see how that's gonna work, G-man."  Unless this replacement was her long lost twin, people were bound to notice the difference.  Her fellow prisoners weren't nearly as oblivious as the average Sunnydale resident.

Giles stood up, "Our solution is a rather novel one actually," he said, making his way to the stairwell.  He called upstairs, "You really should come down now."

Faith froze when she heard an answering grunt.  There was something familiar in the voice.  Turning in her seat, her mouth dropped open at the sight of herself awkwardly descending the stairs, dressed in a flannel shirt and ill-fitting jeans.  She grimaced.  This was a little too much like her experience in Buffy’s body, and Buffy looked just as unhappy about it.

"Xander has volunteered to take your place," Giles explained.  At Faith's even more bewildered look he elaborated, "We put a glamour spell on him."

It was a struggle not to simply dismiss the idea out of hand.  “So, _Xander_ is going to replace me?”  Seriously, Xander, in prison?  He wouldn't last five minutes.  “No offense, but this idea of yours isn’t exactly sane.”

“Well, you’d know all about that,” Buffy muttered from across the room.

Faith looked down at her hands.  She'd walked right into that one.

Giles was busy cleaning his glasses, "I admit, this plan is somewhat _inelegant_ but I would rather not have to worry about the police while we're trying to take care of the much larger problem."

She sighed.  It went unsaid that she was going right back to prison when all this was over.  Freedom – even for just a day - was better than nothing, but she had to ask, “Why not just get Angel to help or something?”

Giles crossed his arms.  “We have a solution, but it requires _you_ , not Angel.”

Faith frowned.  She detected something akin to bitterness in the man's tone.  Too proud to ask for the big guy’s help, perhaps?  Buffy’s expression was still unreadable.  Sure, she had moved on – and was presumably still dating Riley, though he didn’t seem to be here at the moment - but Faith just had to wonder what went through B’s mind whenever the subject of Angel came up. 

She turned to Xander, who was still standing at the foot of the stairs looking distinctly uncomfortable.  “Prison’s no picnic.  You sure you wanna do this, Xan-Man?”

He shrugged, but it was Willow who spoke, “No one _wants_ to do any of this, and no one wants you here either!”

Faith’s eyes narrowed.  She would take shit from Buffy all day and night, but Willow was a different story entirely.

Giles, however, put an end to everything before the situation boiled over.  “ _Enough_.  This is the only way we can succeed.  We must all put aside our differences for the common good.  We can’t afford to wait for the Council, or the covens, or the Army to come and defeat Adam.  We must do it ourselves, and as quickly as possible.”  Everyone in the room froze, surprised by his outburst.

“And what’s to keep her from just skipping town?” Willow asked into the silence.

In answer, Giles walked across the room to a rather unassuming nightstand in the far corner.  Like everything else, it had books stacked on it.  Fishing a key out of his pocket, he opened the small drawer and pulled out two nearly identical silver chain necklaces.  Hanging from each was an oval pendant; one of red crystal, and the other blue.  As he returned with them, it was clear that the two pendants were each glowing faintly with their own light.  Magic seemed to pour off them.  Faith didn't even need to open her eyes to know that.  She could _sense_ it.

“Faith.  These necklaces cannot be taken more than a hundred yards from one another.  If you’re willing, I will give one to you and one to Buffy."

He offered Faith the red one, which she took, immediately surprised by its weight.  “How do these things work, exactly?” she asked, turning the heavy pendant over in her palm.  It was a unique experience, to say the least, and felt like holding a piece of molten rock that was somehow still cold to the touch.  When she stared deeply into its smooth, fiery surface she could make out what appeared to be words trapped inside.  However, every time it seemed like she might be able to read something, the words would melt away only to be replaced with new ones.

Only Giles' cough, and the realization that everyone was staring at her, kept Faith from spending the next half-hour getting lost in it.

“The red necklace gives an incapacitating shock to the wearer whenever the blue necklace is out of range,” he said.

_‘Oh, right.’_   Somewhat reluctantly, Faith handed the necklace back to him.  “So, Buffy’s my P.O. and this is my ankle monitor.  Got it.”

It was obvious that no one in the room understood what she was talking about, and Giles slipped the necklace over her head without comment.  The instant it fell around her neck, Faith felt a brief wave of magic rush over her.  It was like walking out of a cold, dank tomb and into the warm light of the sun.  For something that was meant to be a magical leash, it felt surprisingly pleasant.

Xander asked what was on everyone’s mind, but fuck was it ever weird to hear him speaking in her voice, “Wait.  Can’t she just take it off?”

Giles shook his head as he gave the second necklace to Buffy.  The woman took it in her hand and actually smiled as its blue light shone on her face, seemingly just as enthralled by it as Faith had been.  As B slipped the necklace over her head, Faith felt that magical rush again.  For just a split second, Buffy locked eyes with her, like maybe she had felt it too.

“Faith," Giles said, "I hate to ask this, but could you please try to remove your necklace?”

Nodding suspiciously, Faith reached for it and the instant the tip of her finger touched the chain a burning shock shot straight up her arm.  “Son of a bitch!” she cried as the muscles in her arm turned to jelly and she fell out of her chair.  Every nerve ending felt like it was on fire.  Fuck, was it ever painful.

Satisfied, Willow leaned back on the couch and actually smiled, _the bitch_.  Buffy just looked at her feet, one hand on the pendant around her neck.

“Once activated, the red necklace can only be removed by me.  Just keep yours on, Buffy, and Faith will be unable to touch either the necklace or your person.”

Faith slinked back into her chair.  She had to hand it to the G-Man; he had really thought this one through. 

Anya looked ready to fall asleep, but Willow’s girlfriend was sitting up, intrigued by it all.  “How did you make those, Mister Giles?”

“Well, I had to improvise.  I combined a protection spell with an ancient bonding ritual.”

“A bonding ritual?” Willow repeated, her brow furrowed.

Giles was nervously watching the clock; it was getting closer to midnight.  “I can describe the process later, if you like.”

The strange Xander/Faith hybrid appeared to still be confused though.  “Why does it only hurt when she touches it with her hand?”

Stifling a yawn, Giles waved his question away.

“So," Faith began a little reluctantly, as she tried to shake the remaining tingles out of her arm, "I take part in this ritual thing, and what exactly is supposed to happen?”  Nothing exceptionally painful or disorienting, she hoped.

“Well, after the words have been spoken, our powers should combine and enter Buffy.  She will then use those powers to defeat Adam as quickly as she can.”

“There a time-limit or something?”

“Yes.  I’m not sure how long the effects of the spell will last.”

“I can’t believe we’re going through with this," Buffy muttered.

Again, there was that uncomfortable silence.  There was a whole lot of judging going on this room, and with the exception of Giles, and maybe Tara, everyone looked like they expected Faith to do... _something_.  Whether that something was for her to start throwing punches, or try bolting for the door, she didn't know.  Either one sounded good right about now.

Again Faith sighed.  “I’ll do whatever you guys want me to do.”

Buffy’s narrowed eyes said it all: what she wanted was for Faith to leave and never come back.

"Very good then," Giles said as he poured himself another cup of tea, seemingly oblivious to the tension all around him.

“So, when do we do this?” Faith asked.

“Once we send Xander through the gate, Willow, Tara, and I will go someplace quiet for the day to recharge our magical energies.”

“Ooh, the Channel Islands?” Tara suggested.

Willow perked up, “French Polynesia?”

Giles sighed.  “I was thinking more along the lines of the woods north of town.”

“Oh… darn,” Willow said, smiling at Tara before seeming to remember that there was not just one but _two_ Faiths in the room.  Then it was back to the scowling.

“We’ll be ready to attempt the ritual on Thursday, if all goes well.”

If this were last year, Faith would’ve made some off-color remark about Giles wanting some alone time with two girls half his age, but there was no way in hell she was doing that now.  This whole room was giving off some serious keep-your- mouth-shut vibes.

“What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” Buffy asked.

“Look for any sign of Adam’s whereabouts, but for the love of God, do _not_ engage him.”

Buffy pushed herself off the wall and nodded firmly.  “I can do that.”

Giles turned his attention to the salt-outlined circle lying in front of his television, using a large brush to reshape the bits that Faith had accidentally mussed up.  “Oh, and Buffy?”  The slayer stopped just as she put her hand on the doorknob.  “Take Faith with you.”

...

Faith rubbed her ear.  She’d never heard the word ‘what’ shouted with such intensity before. 

It hadn't exactly been pleasant to sit there like a prisoner awaiting sentencing while Buffy and Willow rattled off a long list of reasons why Faith couldn’t be trusted to step so much as a foot outside: she had tried to pin the death of the deputy mayor on Buffy, she'd helped Mayor Wilkens with his plans to ascend and then destroy the town and everyone in it, she had tried to strangle Xander, she'd almost killed Angel, she had murdered an innocent man... If they’d had more time they might’ve even gotten to the stuff she’d done _after_ waking from her coma, but for some damn reason Giles stopped them.  Why the old man was so quick to come to her defense, Faith didn’t know.  He didn’t owe her shit.

Eventually, Buffy had to be reminded that Adam’s dream was to create an entire _army_ of demons, and he’d already had two whole days to get started. 

Faith, meanwhile, kept silent and didn't so much as look up from the floor.  She had long been used to stepping into rooms only to find everyone completely displeased to see her.  Back then she couldn’t have given a fuck what anyone thought, but of course things had changed.

Now she actually did care, but every moment of this brief trip outside prison walls only served to remind her of the myriad things she had done wrong in her life.  Even with a magical leash tethering her to her sister-slayer, the old Faith would've reveled in this kind of freedom, likely being torn between finding a way to escape and using her forced close proximity to Buffy to mess with the girl’s mind.

Faith sure as fuck wasn't reveling in _this_ though.  Here she was, quietly tagging along with someone who hated her guts.  The one girl in all the world who had the most reason to want her dead.

At least Giles had been kind enough to give her some of the clothes she’d left behind in her old apartment.  Her old leather boots fit like a second skin, so much better than those floppy, prison issued slippers she'd been wearing the past few months.  However, her plain white shirt and leather pants were another story.  Unfortunately, the prison didn't dole out extra portions to someone with a slayer's metabolism.

But hey, it still beat those ugly-ass prison jumpsuits.

Meanwhile, silently and resentfully, Buffy led the way across town to Rosefield Cemetery.  Even for a typical Sunnydale weeknight, the streets were quiet and it didn't take long to figure out why; vampires and demons were lurking behind practically every parked car and telephone booth, escapees from Adam's grand melee.

Buffy made short work of them, which was a good thing, because while all the old moves came back naturally to Faith, much of her usual strength was decidedly absent.

Not having a stake didn't help much either, but at least Faith was able to improvise by snapping off a branch.

Meanwhile, Buffy fought with a silent mix of anger and frustration that Faith found a little disturbing, and by the time they were finished with Rosefield, they left for the next cemetery with several downed trees and one toppled tombstone to mark their presence.

Buffy was really letting loose, and admittedly it would've actually been pretty damn hot had Faith not been busy fearing for her life.  She’d always had a weakness for Buffy being all sweaty and out of breath, but right now the wild-eyed slayer looked like she might snap at any second, throw Faith against a tree, and stake her like the twenty-some vamps she’d already dealt with.

So, for self-preservation purposes, Faith was keeping her distance, or rather _trying_ to, but Buffy seemed intent on keeping Faith constantly in her sights.  And since she had no intention of running away - besides, another test of her necklace's power?  Holy shit.  She’d fucking pass on that – it all just meant that Buffy was doing a lousy job of looking out for the various creatures of the night.  Faith had already been forced to warn B of approaching vamps more than once.

She wondered, if Adam were to show, just who would Buffy be more wary of?

"Why'd you do it?"

Faith nearly tripped over her own feet.  "Do what?" she asked, again stopping as Buffy stopped, taking care to keep her distance.

"Why'd you turn against us?  Against _me_?"

Faith swallowed.  That wasn't a question that could be easily answered.  "I - I don't know, B."  It was partly the truth, but still a cop-out and Buffy knew it.

Her expression turned red hot in a flash, and suddenly she was up in Faith's face.  "Giles gave me some sob story; trying to say it was our fault you went crazy, something about a broken home or whatever.  Poor little Faith, if only we had loved her-"

Faith clenched her fists at her sides, but she didn't flinch or step back.

"- Like that excuses your murdering ways, or your stealing my body so that I could take the Council's punishment for you."

There were a million things Faith could've said in response; she could’ve tried describing just how alienated she felt even in the days when they were sort of friends, how Buffy kept secrets from her all the time, how she hated the jealous looks Willow would always give her… but it all just sounded so completely pathetic.

The fact was, the mere thought of her sister-slayer it a fire in Faith’s belly so strong she hadn’t a clue how to deal with it.  Never had she wanted anything as much as she had wanted Buffy.  It was scary, and to be honest, it was _still_ scary.  A year later and that feeling was still there, tearing at her insides whenever she so much as looked at the woman.

And when it became perfectly clear that Buffy would never, _could never_ , be interested in someone like her, Faith burnt it all down, destroying any hope that they could ever be friends again.  Push Buffy away and it all wouldn’t hurt so much, right?

But when B then went after the mayor, what was she supposed to do?  Let her kill the only person who cared for her?  So, _fine_ , she’d thought; B hurts you, you hurt her back.  Revenge; that was something she easily understood.  And when Faith would look into Buffy’s eyes and those old feelings immediately resurfaced, well, she’d just keep reminding herself of the woman’s mistakes while doing her best to forget her own.  Everyone did it, right?  How else could people live with themselves when they fucked up?

Except, yeah, it was a horrible thing to do and Buffy hadn’t deserved any of it.

What had Faith even wanted from her?  Sex?  Friendship?  Love?  Fuck, she didn’t know.  Looking into those same green eyes now, Faith felt a hundred different confusing emotions - anger, love, jealousy, lust - just as if not a single day had passed since the night they first met.   _‘Fuck.  You make me crazy, B.’_

She didn’t dare say it.

Back in LA, similar words had been on her lips as she tortured Wesley - _‘You made me this way’ -_ and at the time, she’d believed every word.  Wesley, Angel, Buffy, they all deserved everything she’d done to them.  It was _their_ fucking fault.  Self-righteous fury; that’s what got her through her darkest days.

Fucking _bullshit_.

Every single one of those tired old excuses rang hollow in her ears now.

In the end, Faith was left with the same dilemma she’d been struggling with since that night in LA.  There was nothing she could say to Buffy; no words that could ever come remotely close to excusing all she had done.  Maybe she should stop trying to find them.  Words like that simply didn’t exist.

So, what could she say?  Only one thing came to mind.

She opened her mouth only to shut it immediately.  _'Apologize to me and I will beat you to death,'_ Buffy had said.  It wasn't something Faith would forget for as long as she lived.

Buffy laughed in her face, as if she were reading her mind.  "So, that's really it, huh?  You had a bad childhood so you're not responsible for anything you did?"

Fists clenched to the point of drawing blood, Faith narrowed her eyes but refused to move.  If Buffy wanted to go to town on her, she was welcomed to.

They stood there, staring each other down for the longest time, the world around them completely forgotten.  It wasn’t easy maintaining eye contact with Buffy, but Faith did it nonetheless.  Old habits die hard.  You don’t show weakness to your enemy.  And maybe Buffy wasn't her enemy, but that certainly wasn't how the blonde woman saw things.

Finally, B snapped.  "Answer me, dammit!" she shouted, grabbing Faith by the upper arm, triggering a bright flash of light from their twin pendants.  In that instant Faith was seized by the worst pain she had ever experienced; much, much worse than being stabbed in the gut with her own knife.  The next thing she knew, she was face down in the dirt, screaming and clawing at the ground, her muscles burning in ways she hadn't thought possible.

Through the searing pain, it was all Faith could do to keep from crying.  She’d expected more, for Buffy to kick her when she was down, but when she finally rolled onto her back, B was just standing over her, her arms crossed, and her face again an unreadable mask.  Faith stared back in a mixture of shock and terror, heart pounding like mad.  Finally, Buffy shook her head and turned away.  Her voice was so very quiet, yet every word cut like a knife, "I wish I had never met you."

As the blonde stalked off, Faith sat there in the dirt, breathing heavily.  Buffy should've just grabbed her arm again.  That would've hurt a lot less.

* * *

With Faith not-so-closely at her side, the two slayers fought vamps and demons for several more hours until practically every muscle in Buffy's body ached, no longer with the pain of her last confrontation with Adam, but with normal exertion.  Well, normal for a slayer at any rate.  It was a little like the old days, only without Faith's constant baiting and sexual innuendos. 

Faith wasn't exactly saying much of anything, to be honest.

She certainly appeared to be more in control of herself these days, but like everything else involving Faith it was probably just an act; an attempt to get Buffy to let her guard down or to mess with her head in some new and unique way.

After all their history together, and her recent experience of being played the fool by Spike, Buffy wasn't buying it.

Still, in the less important outwardly way, Faith _had_ changed.  Gone was the makeup, and the dark lipstick she preferred to wear.  Her old clothes didn’t fit as well either, and despite it all, Buffy found herself disturbed by just how thin she looked now.   Faith also kept her eyes locked on the ground at all times, dragging her tired feet as she walked and looking decidedly gloomy while doing so. 

The sight was disconcerting, and not in the way Faith’s mere presence used to make her feel ages ago, back when such disconcerting feelings were actually kind of welcome.   It hadn't just been the joy of fighting alongside someone who actually understood her messed-up life, though that was definitely nice, but more the way being with Faith always led to the unexpected.  Faith was always pushing her, always daring her to step out of her comfort zone.

When she arrived at the beginning of Buffy’s senior year, Faith had given her something she hadn't known she wanted.  With her sister slayer, Buffy found someone who could always keep up with her, someone who was fun, someone who always treated her like an equal... someone, sadly, quite unlike her boyfriend, Riley.

And fighting side by side with Faith _had_ been fun, but in typical Buffy Summers fashion, their most memorable night together turned quickly into a nightmare.

And it had been a constant nightmare ever since.

She sighed as she marched quickly ahead of Faith.  Those days were over, never to return, and an unsettling feeling of loss hit her whenever she so much as looked at the other girl now.  Life was so much easier when Faith was out of sight.

Glancing over her shoulder, she could see Faith grasping her shoulder as she stuggled to keep up.  Giles had said that Faith couldn't so much as touch her without being wracked with serious pain, but that warning had honestly been the last thing on her mind when she'd angrily grabbed the younger woman's arm a few hours ago.

And it struck her then that the sight of Faith crumpled on the ground and whimpering in pain hadn't given her the sense of triumph she'd long expected.  Instead, the only thought on her mind afterwards was, _'You're better than this.'_

As Buffy walked on, she kicked a stone in anger and sent it flying over the cemetery wall.

Sometimes she wondered what was happening to her.  She'd been a slayer for five years, spending night after night battling with demons and the undead.  What if her nocturnal activities were affecting her in ways too subtle to notice?  Would she even recognize the girl who had moved to Sunnydale four long years ago, the girl who only dreamed of living a normal life and maybe doing some cheerleading after school?

Lately, she'd been plagued by self-doubt and this growing sense of impending doom, like she hadn’t long to live.  Some nights it seemed like the only thing on her mind was death, and for too long she’d been having really bad dreams; falling to her death, a city in flames, dragons, and worse things besides.   Did this happen to every slayer who endured their calling as long as she had?  Did they all lose their minds after years spent alone with only demons and the undead for company?

Buffy frowned.  Maybe she should’ve dropped Psych 101 when she had the chance.

The more immediate question was what to do with Faith until they needed her again.  The college dorms were off-limits and she couldn't just drop her off at Giles' house either, not with this damned magical leash.  Besides, Buffy wasn’t particularly keen on spending a night on his sofa.

In the end, she found herself walking down Revello Drive just as dawn began to break.  At least at her mom's she'd have her old bed to sleep on.

Unexpectedly, the front door opened just as she was about to put the key in the lock.  Joyce stood there, dressed for work and not looking especially surprised to see her.  "Mom?  You're awake?"

"Mister Giles left a message on the machine.  Something about unexpected visitors," she said, a tiny smile forming on her lips.

Buffy swallowed nervously.  "You know about Faith then?"

Joyce nodded.

"I - I'm sorry.  I couldn't think of any place to take her, and with all the things going on -"

"Things?" Joyce repeated.

"Uh, yeah.  You remember what happened at graduation?"

Her mom’s eyes went wide.  “ _Again_?  I knew I should've voted for the other guy."

" _No_ , no.  No mayor this time.  It's just, there's another potentially town-destroying scenario playing out," Buffy said lamely.  She always felt a little odd telling her mother about slayer business, like maybe one day she would just snap and have her sent to an asylum.

That feeling would’ve probably been a little less pronounced if her mom and dad hadn’t already done that once before when she was fifteen.

"Oh... I see," Joyce said, in a way that indicated she didn’t, not really anyway.

"You should really leave until all this blows over."

"Buffy, if I left every time there was a demonic emergency in this town, I'd lose my job.  Unless... do you think I'm in danger specifically?"

Would Adam target her mom?  It didn't really seem like his style.  "No.  He... _Adam_... he doesn't consider anyone a threat at this point," she said, her voice wavering a little.

Joyce seemed to consider the meaning behind the words and noticeably paled.  Then, without warning, she wrapped Buffy up in a tight hug.

Buffy squeezed her back.  "I'm so sorry, Mom.  I should come by more... and not just to do laundry."

"It's all right.  We can make up for it later," Joyce said before pulling away slowly.

"Have you been waiting for us all night?"

"Oh, no," Joyce said, checking her watch.  "I have to get the gallery ready.  We've got an important shipment of African art coming in this morning."

Buffy nodded dully.  Whatever had kept her going through for the past several hours was definitely wearing off.  She yawned.  Another night spent slaying, and this time with her mortal enemy in tow.  Ugh.  Worst freshman year _ever_.

“In fact,” Joyce continued, ”we could use some volunteers to move all the crates.”

_‘Oh, crap.  Think, Buffy, think!’_   "I have finals to study for!" she blurted out much too loudly, startling her mother for a second before her lips curved into a knowing smile.  Thank God for class work.  That old excuse had gotten her out of unpaid grunt work at the gallery more times than she could count.

Joyce sighed, "All right, all right.”  Scanning the porch, she frowned.  “And where is Faith?”

“Over there,” Buffy said, looking over her shoulder to find her arch nemesis leaning against a tree in the front yard, arms crossed and dark eyes staring at the grass at her feet, looking as sullen and haunted as ever.

Bizarrely, her mom's answering frown seemed directed more at her than at Faith, the girl with the annoying habit of ruining everyone’s lives.  “Well,” she said, pushing the door open, “invite her in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Faith :c Don't worry, Buffy won't hate her forever.


	4. Chapter 4

…

“Oh!  The good times when we were so unhappy.”

\- Alexandre Dumas, _Le Chevalier d'Harmental_

…

Sunnydale.  May 3rd, 2000.

...

When she awoke to the vague sensation of warm light shining on her face, Faith half-expected to hear the buzzer announcing the unlocking of her cell, but it never came; there was no chattering of prisoners, no guards yelling, ‘Lehane, wake your ass up!’  Nope, nothing more than the chirping of birds and the gentle hum of the refrigerator.

Opening her eyes, Faith's brow crinkled as she rolled onto her back.  Neatly arranged furniture without a hint of dust, a glass cabinet filled with art books, its top lined with candles, and a painting of some generic landscape on the far wall; welcome to the world of Buffy Summers.

She blinked and for a split-second wondered if maybe the last several months had all been a very bad and elaborate dream, but the feel of the magical necklace resting heavily on her skin said otherwise.

Faith huffed and struggled to get comfortable again, shutting her eyes only to open them a few seconds later and curse to herself.  Every morning after breakfast - if you could call it that - she’d take a long run in the prison yard, trying to burn off some of that energy that always seemed to course through her limbs, but she wasn't about to go outside now; this was where Buffy left her, and this was where she would stay, lest the girl freak out and assume she was off hatching some nefarious plot.

So, she was stuck here, with the barren, cramped isolation of a concrete prison cell replaced with the idealized picture of suburban life that was Joyce’s living room.  Faith looked down at the necklace resting just above her breast, still glowing faintly with its own light; one prison cell for another.

And fuck, maybe it didn’t quite reach _Fresh Prince of Bel-Air_ levels of swankness, but really, this was how people lived in TV shows, not in real life.  Her mom’s place back in Boston had been much more with the empty beer cans and cigarette smoke and less about the freshly dusted furniture and scent of pine-sol.  For Faith, home meant trash all over the place, appliances that didn’t work, and creepy as fuck visitors she tried to avoid whenever possible.

With a huff, she rolled over and searched blindly for the remote.  The next half-hour was spent watching an old as shit Bob Barker host _The Price is Right_.  Figured Joyce wouldn't have cable.  What the hell did she even do with her free time?

When Buffy finally came down, she slumped groggily into a nearby chair with an array of textbooks piled around her, evidently there for the long haul.  There was a very strong temptation for Faith to point out that if she hadn't tried to escape, or strangle Buffy in her bed – not that she could even do either of those things - it wasn't likely she would start something _now_ , but no.  Fuck it.  She went back to channel surfing. 

Channel 11: Soap-opera.

*click*

Channel 12: Static.

*click*

Channel 13: The exact same soap-opera that was on channel 11.

*click*

*bzzt*

The entire room went dark.  A power failure.  Faith and Buffy sighed in unison.  It was going to be a long day.

* * *

Buffy couldn't remember an experience as long and awkward as this one.  Without power, she sat silently in her chair, relying on the sun for the light she needed as she struggled with one of the three essays that had to be finished by the time classes started up again… whenever that was.  Meanwhile, Faith quickly grew antsy, and after taking history's longest shower, spent some time wandering around the living room, getting so bored she even spent time looking through mom’s collection of books.

Every little shuffle and sigh grated on her like nails on a chalkboard, but Buffy held her tongue.  There was nothing for Faith to do, and she was tired of fighting with her.

Behavioral modernity, cultural universals, Blombos Cave… the scribbled words in her notebook ran together into one incomprehensible blob.  It was a shame she was stuck with a high-school dropout for company.  Willow would probably know something about late human evolution.  Why did she have to leave her anthropology notes back in her dorm?  And, _ugh_ , why was Faith fiddling with the blinds?

She slammed the book shut and grabbed another one.  When her thoughts weren’t occupied by Faith, they turned to Adam.  What was he up to?  It might’ve helped if she had Willow’s laptop with her.  Perhaps there was something there her friend had overlooked?  It wasn’t likely, but to be honest, it was more likely than her finishing this assignment anytime this century.

“Hey, B?”

Buffy looked up from her sea of papers to find Faith staring intently out of one of the small windows in the front door.  She grunted in response, but Faith still beckoned her over.

When she finally peeked between the living room blinds, Buffy immediately noticed the camouflaged jeep parked outside.  Behind the wheel was a man in shades, dressed in a blue military uniform of some kind.  Interesting.  The thought struck her that maybe her mom was dating a soldier half her age, but no, because seriously, _eww_.

Faith raised an eyebrow in question, but Buffy was too busy frowning at the image in her head.

They observed together in silence for a while.  The jeep never moved and the driver gave no sign that he’d noticed them either.  Faith tried to ask her if she recognized the man, but Buffy held up a hand to shut her up.  The woman’s expression turned dark, dangerous even, but she only crossed her arms.

Finally having enough, Buffy approached the door and was surprised at the way Faith recoiled from her.  For a long moment, they stared at each other.  Again, annoying doubts surfaced at the genuinely frightened look in those brown eyes staring widely back at her, but Buffy pushed it all from her mind.   _Adam_ was the priority here.  And Faith?  Faith couldn’t be trusted.  She needed to remember that.

When they stepped out onto the porch, the jeep casually pulled away from the curb like its driver hadn’t just been spying on them for God knew how long.  Faith stared at her expectantly and sighed at Buffy’s continued silent treatment.  "Who do you think that was?" she asked.

Buffy would've preferred to keep her hours long streak of not speaking to Faith intact, but it would be pretty damn stupid to keep her in the dark when there were far more dangerous things than a rogue slayer running around out there.  "I don’t know,” she admitted.  “The Initiative knows about me.  Or maybe it was someone working for Adam, like Spike was.”

Wrinkles formed on Faith’s forehead.  “He didn’t look like a demon to me.  He looked more like he belonged in the Matrix.”

She almost laughed.  Almost.  “One of the Initiative’s soldiers allowed Adam to make _modifications_ to him.  He grafted demon parts onto his body.”  Had it not been for all the grafting done on his head, Lieutenant Forrest could’ve looked as human as anyone.

“Gross.”

Buffy nodded.  Gross didn’t begin to describe it.

“Guess it could also be a demon in disguise, now that you mention it,” Faith said.  “I mean, if you guys can make Xander look like me, I guess anything’s possible.” 

She shook her head.  Any more speculating and she would lose it.  “Well, whoever he was, I hope he wasn’t practicing for the World’s Most Subtle Stakeout Competition.”

"You think Adam's about to start something?”

"Maybe.  Or maybe the military is?"  Buffy wasn’t sure which possibility was worse.

Just last night they had seen plenty of hungry vamps roaming the streets of Sunnydale.  It was worrisome that even that many had escaped that underground facility.  Three days ago, in their final act, Buffy and Giles had bombed the elevator shaft that led up to Lowell House.   Riley’s friends were pretty foolish to just leave all those explosives unguarded in the broom closet. 

If Adam was still alive down there – and it was a near certainty - then he was busy creating new monsters from all the parts Buffy, the demons, and the Initiative left behind.  Could he do that without power?  Wouldn't an underground lab have a power source of its own or something?  Adam had one, after all.  _Ugh_ … she didn’t know a damn thing.

Either way, whether it was one powerful demon, or a hundred, was the army really going to be able to stop Adam should he decide to take a stroll outside the compound?

She shook her head.  Life was so much easier when it was just her versus the bad guy, not her versus the bad guy, versus the government.  "Maybe we should take a look around."

"I'm down with that," Faith said, rocking on the balls of her feet.  Buffy blinked.  There was a bit of the old Faith in her now, a bit that actually didn’t hurt to think about, and now was an opportune time to put some of that energy to good use.  Besides, if they could somehow sneak onto campus, she might be able grab Willow's laptop along with all the useful intel it contained.

In the light of day, Faith looked a little better than she had last night; or less tired, at least.  The bags under her eyes were less pronounced, but she was still too thin, and her skin too colorless.  It reminded her of the way Faith had looked after her coma.  Again, Buffy shook her head, but for a different reason entirely.  “All right, let's go,” she said.  “But remember,” Buffy paused, attempting her best Giles impersonation, “if you see Adam, for the love of God, do not engage him."

Faith jumped off the porch and on to the front walk, her face breaking into a familiar dimpled grin as she looked over her shoulder, "Whatever you say, Blondie."

Buffy did smile that time, ruefully.  Faith was all energy and enthusiasm once more.  For a brief moment it was like no time had passed since those distant nights when they went slaying together, and to her surprise, she didn’t feel that familiar anger at Faith’s presence anymore.  Instead, there was only a sense of loss.  In Tara, Willow had found someone who understood her in a way that no one else did.  Why couldn’t Buffy have that?  Why did Faith have to turn against her and ruin her only chance?

Suddenly, she felt sick to her stomach.

As quickly as it appeared, Faith’s cheerfulness vanished.  Her questioning eyes were so expressive now, not guarded like they always used to be.  There was such a sadness in them, like she knew what Buffy felt.  It only made that sense of loss even more profound.  “B?”

Buffy dipped her head.  “Let’s go,” she said softly.

* * *

“These are my only pair of boots, I’ll have you know,” Faith said as she dropped into the thankfully mostly dry, but still moldy and highly unpleasant smelling sewer.

“Feel free to send the bill to the council, if you want,” Buffy said as she dropped down behind her.

Faith huffed as the blonde took the lead, lighting the way with a tiny pocket flashlight.  “So, any idea where we’re going?”

“Stevenson Hall.”

“Oh, good,” Faith grumbled to herself, that told her a whole fucking lot.

“My dorm room," Buffy continued as they carefully treaded around the foul water pooled at this confluence of drains.  "I’d like to get my hands on Willow's laptop.  With all those demons we saw last night, there _has_ to be another way out.  No way would they’ve gotten passed all those troops topside."

 _‘Topside?’_ Faith mouthed to herself.  "Uh huh.  But wouldn't the army already know all the exits?"

"Maybe... maybe not.  There were a lot of things that even Colonel McNamara didn't know about.  He had no idea that lab 314 existed, for one thing."

 _'Must not have been much of a commander,'_ Faith thought.  At least the Mayor had always taken pains to know everything that was going on in his town.  In fact, he was the reason these sewer lines were so large; they allowed his minions to travel without being detected.  "Okay.  So who _did_ know?"

"Professor Walsh,” Buffy said with a sigh.  “She got turned into a zombie though."

Faith snorted.  A zombie.  " _Right_.  How about you start from the beginning?"

So, as they walked, Buffy filled her in on all the little facts about the Initiative that Giles hadn't bothered to mention the previous night; the number of troops and scientists stationed there, a rough idea of the weapons they had at their disposal, and a list of all the varying types of demons that had been locked up just before everything went to hell.

Then there was the touchy subject of Buffy’s brief stint with them.  Faith kept her mouth shut, but the whole idea of joining a secret military organization sounded pretty stupid to her.  Sure, Buffy was a goody-two-shoes who would probably jump off a cliff if someone told her it was the right thing to do, but it was still shocking that she went along with it.  Considering how even her best friends reacted to Angel when he came back from Hell, it seemed pretty foolish to put your lot in with a bunch of strangers with guns that might hold very different opinions than yours when it came to who was a threat and who wasn’t.  Sex with Riley couldn’t have been _that_ good.  Faith knew all about that.

She must really love the guy to put up with that shit. 

Faith sent a small stone sailing over Buffy's shoulder, quickly apologizing when the woman stopped to glare at her.

They proceeded in silence until they finally turned the next corner, only to find the way blocked by an avalanche of dirt and concrete.  Buffy shook her head at the colossal mass ahead of her.  Perhaps dynamiting the elevator shaft hadn’t been such a brilliant idea after all.  The blonde kicked a fallen lump of concrete and sighed.

Faith frowned in thought.  They’d tried the overland route already and between the smoldering ruins of Lowell House and all the soldiers milling around campus, the scene resembled the ending of a Schwarzenegger movie.  The temptation was there to simply bite her tongue and follow B back home in silence just as Buffy no doubt wanted, but Faith wanted to be useful, even if she got blindly rebuffed a hundred times for it.  “Um, what was on the laptop anyway?”

“Schematics on the Initiative’s base.  I thought maybe there would be something we missed.  Another way in.”  She tapped the concrete mass with her foot once more.  “There’s got to be one somewhere.  Call it a gut feeling.”

That was something Faith could relate to.  As a slayer, it paid to listen to your gut.

“Why?” Buffy asked.  “Do you know something?”

“Well, the Bo-,” she caught herself, “er, _the Mayor_ , he had all these detailed maps of the sewers in his office.  They might still be there.”

It surprised her when Buffy’s tone didn’t instantly turn bitter.  “Did he ever mention the Initiative?”

Faith shrugged, finally meeting Buffy’s gaze.  “Not to me, no, but he kept a lot of secrets.  He might’ve known something.”

“So, City Hall, huh?  I doubt we could just ask the new mayor to let us in.”

Faith shook her head.  “I know a better way.”

Buffy tossed her the flashlight.

…

Traveling through the sewers brought back a lot of unpleasant memories.  Absently running a hand along the brick wall, she recalled walking side by side with one of the Mayor’s vampire lackeys down this very same tunnel many months ago.  That was on the night she poisoned Angel.  She let her hand drop back to her side.

The big guy would probably say she wasn’t ready to be out here, that it was too soon, the memories too fresh in her mind.

Another turn.  Her flashlight did little to dispel the gloom in this place.  Angel would be right.  Faith smiled to herself at the thought.  Back in prison, there were a number of super-creepy and overly earnest girls who had found God.  Faith wondered how they’d react if they learned that her conscience had taken the form of a two-hundred year old vampire who called himself Angel. 

Before long, they came to a portion of wall marked only by a single missing brick at chest level.

Buffy huffed impatiently, probably irritated that this bit of sewer looked exactly like every other bit.

Passing the flashlight to her, Faith pressed a hand against the hole in the wall.  It wasn’t a hole at all.  It was actually as solid as the rest the bricks.  “Let’s see if he changed the password.” 

A faint red light began to shine from the bricks themselves, forming a sigil, the same one the Mayor used to seal his private documents.  Buffy stepped back, her posture rigid.  Solemnly, Faith repeated the words she hadn’t spoken in almost a year.  “Maskelli.  Maskello.  Ton Thalassemon.”  The words echoed from the darkness surrounding them.  With every breath, her heart beat faster and faster as those tingles that told her something was wrong grew more and more pronounced.  She ignored it, as she’d always done while in the Mayor’s service.    “Rouse yourselves, demons who live here and prepare the way.”  Her hair began whipping in a wind that seemed to come from everywhere at once.  “Arech rexithon.  Daimon aphithiton!”

In an instant, the wind died, the bricks vanished, and before them stood a long hallway strewn with cobwebs and dimly lit by magical torches.

Buffy was outraged, “What the hell was that?!”

“The password,” Faith said, struggling to remain standing.  “I forgot.  It’s a lot harder to get in than it is to get out.  A security measure against demonic attack.”  Faith was immune because she was human, or rather, almost immune.  Despite the filth, she leaned heavily against the wall, attempting to catch her breath.

“It felt evil.”

Faith had to agree; it almost certainly was.  She desperately wanted a shower now.  She felt dirty, and it had nothing to do with their current location.  “Never bothered to find out what the words meant.  Some demon-corrupted version of Greek, I think he said.”

“When this is over, I’m having Willow destroy that… that, whatever that was,” Buffy grumbled, gesturing at the wall that was no longer there.

“No argument here.” 

With the flashlight, Buffy cautiously inspected the passageway while Faith pretended to find her feet fascinating.  A murderous expression was in B’s eyes and she felt like a fool for even suggesting they come here.  This went way beyond opening up old wounds; it was opening them up, pouring salt into them, and then letting Buffy walk all over her broken body in a pair of four inch stilettos.  “Come on,” she finally said gruffly.

Resigned, Faith pushed herself off the wall.  A door that opened at the behest of demons.  A sewer that reeked of death.  She couldn’t help but think that the world would be a better place if everything the Mayor touched was simply wiped off the face of the Earth.

…

After they ascended the stairs to the mayor’s office, the door shut solidly behind them, leaving not so much as a crease in the wall to mark its presence.  Oddly, even under the faint glow of the yellow emergency lights, it was clear that the room hadn’t changed to any great degree.  Mayor Wilkins’ desk was still where it had always been, as was the flag, and the wall of filing cabinets.  However, pushed all to one side were a number of crates, boxes, and statues that were in various stages of being packed up.

Faith peeked under a sheet that only half-covered the largest of the statues and frowned at what she saw.  She could understand why the new mayor was getting rid of this one.  Few people really had the stomach for sharing space with an eight foot statue of Ahnkalazik the All-Devouring on a daily basis.  A shame really; the Mayor had said that the demon’s eight heads and unconventional genitalia made for an excellent conversation starter at parties.

Buffy was unimpressed by all of this, so Faith quickly directed her to the most promising cabinets and before long they’d managed to fish out a number of promising maps.  Just as she started trying to decipher them however, Buffy looked up worriedly at the sound of heavy boots echoing down the hallway.  She hurriedly switched off her flashlight and gestured at the invisible door they had entered from.  Faith shook her head.  There wasn’t time to open it again, even if she had the strength to do so.

Buffy frowned, then bolted for the adjacent secretary’s office, maps in hand, just as the footsteps stopped, Faith right on her heels.

The door flew open and the two slayers found themselves face to face with a soldier.

It was a woman, and a very attractive one at that; tall, blue eyed, with her blonde hair in a pony-tail.  Buffy and Faith both froze when she held up her rifle, but after getting a good look at them she slowly lowered it.  “Didn’t you hear the call?  Public buildings are being evacuated.”

It was amazing just how quickly Buffy could transform from a stalker of the undead, feared by vamps around the world, and into a ditzy valley girl.  She did that thing where she twirled a lock of her long blonde hair around her finger and scrunched her brow as though the simple act of holding a conversation was taking all her reserves of brain power. “Evacuated?” she said, sounding like she’d never heard the word before in her life.

“Gas leak, from the earthquake.”

“Like, oh my god!  _Really_?”

It was all Faith could do to keep a straight face and the soldier’s expression was equally dubious to say the least.  She scanned the room with the light from her gun.  Fortunately, there were two desks with computers in this cramped space.  “You two work here or something?”

Buffy nodded, pointing to herself and Faith.  “Secretaries.”

Again, that dubious look.  “Uh huh, and you’re here _because_?”

Snatching up some of her jumbled collection of stolen maps and papers, Buffy squeaked, “I left my notes for class here!”

 _‘Whoa,’_ Faith thought.  _‘Tone it down a notch, girl.’_  

The soldier inched backward and Faith felt the need to come to the rescue, "Uh yeah, sorry, my friend is a little excitable, but she’s definitely gonna fail without those notes."

Buffy glared at her, but the soldier misread it and nodded at Faith.  "This _is_ your office then?" she asked.

“Yep,” Faith said with a nod, but she stepped back from the desk she’d been leaning on when she finally got a good look at it.  The computer was completely covered in heart-shaped stickers and there were several small framed photographs of some generic looking college guy, complete with letterman jacket, all arranged in a neat row.  “Um,” she pointed to Buffy, “this one’s hers.”

The soldier grinned.  “No doubt.”

Finally, Buffy finished restacking her papers into some semblance of order and smiled nervously at the woman.

"Very well,” the soldier said, shaking her head.  “I'll escort you out."

…

“So, you a college student?” she asked as they descended the dimly lit stairs.

Faith nodded, not entirely sure why she piling up more lies on top of the last one.  It was a tough habit to break, but after giving it some thought, it was probably better to keep lying than admit to a member of the armed forces that she was supposed to be in prison serving twenty-five to life.

“Thought so.  Secretary work doesn’t seem your style.”

Faith smiled easily as she kept in step behind Buffy who seemed a little annoyed, though what else was new?  “Yeah,” she drawled.  “Not enough action.”

The soldier smirked back.  "I bet."  She had that confident sort of look that Faith had always been attracted to.  It was the same look Buffy had when she slayed.

Once on the ground floor, they exited through some double doors to find themselves outside on a sunny plaza facing the city’s main street.  At the center of this open space stood a giant stone sundial, probably fifteen feet tall, another construction of Mayor Wilkins.  He said that time-sensitive rituals were better done by the sundial than by your watch.  The unholy demons of the infinite planes of Hell appreciated it when you went the extra mile, and they were old school like that.

Like the rest of Sunnydale, the plaza was dead quiet and the only people milling around in the afternoon sun were soldiers, all dressed in camo just like their escort.   Yellow police tape sealed off the building, but City Hall was nowhere near as tightly locked down as the college had been.

“So, what’s your major?”

Buffy was still occasionally meeting Faith’s gaze with that same damn look of irritation.  "Um, history," she said after some thought, and hey, it was _kind of_ true.  There were probably history majors at UCSD who didn’t think about the past half as much as Faith had in the past four months.

"Oh, cool,” the soldier said, eyes brightening.  “I love history."

"Yeah," Faith said, nodding.  "You can learn a lot from the mistakes of the past."

Buffy just huffed and shook her head as the soldier hummed in agreement.

Once they were outside the perimeter, Buffy obviously wanted to keep right on going, but Faith stopped, mostly because she had an unexplainable urge to annoy B just a little.  She’d always had that urge for some reason.  Besides, soldier-chick was totally easy on the eyes.

"Thanks for the escort," she said, smiling and tilting her head to the side in a way that tended to get her anything she wanted - to her left, Buffy was rolling her eyes - well, okay, _almost_ anything.  But hey, Faith couldn’t help it if G.I. Jane here liked what she saw.

With a grin of her own, the soldier ripped out a slip of paper from a tiny notepad, scribbled something on it and handed it to her.

Faith's smile widened.  _'Katherine 595-8063.'_ The soldier winked and paused long enough to visibly check her out with an appreciative nod, then waved goodbye and returned to her post, putting a bit of sway in her step as she walked.

Buffy couldn’t have looked more exasperated if she tried.  "Did that woman just give you her number?"

There was zero chance she’d ever call her, but Faith slipped the note into her pocket anyway.  "Guess I've still got it,” she said with a shrug.

...

Tomorrow would be the big day, a long awaited opportunity to finally do something useful and not fuck things up for once.  Faith wanted to be well-rested, to bring her A-game and all that shit, so of course she was outside on the Summers' back porch because she couldn't fucking sleep.

Buffy had given her the serious stink-eye when she found her out here a few minutes ago, but there wasn't anything she could really do about it.  Besides, the power was still out, and Faith would be damned if she was going to sit around in the living room while Buffy did her homework by candlelight, especially after B went through all those maps and found a fat load of nothing useful.

At least out here it was a warm, clear, and moonless night, with only the slightest of breezes to tickle the skin.  Her head was fucking killing her though.  She hadn’t had a smoke in almost two days.

Lying back in the wooden patio chair, her head resting against a towel she’d swiped from Buffy's bathroom, Faith was content to watch the stars drift by.  Vamps didn't worry her too much.   The nice thing about slayer senses was how they worked for you even when you were sleeping; something she’d learned all too well on her long trip across the country – from Boston to Sunnydale - spending the night under bridges and other places she'd just as soon forget about.  The creatures of the night would never get the drop on her.

Dimly, she felt, more than heard, the glass door slide open.  Without even looking over her shoulder she knew it wasn't Buffy.

"Faith?"

"Hey, Mrs. S."

To her surprise, the other chair began scraping heavily against the porch as Joyce made to join her in stargazing.   Not that Joyce was bad company exactly, but aside from the awkwardness of hanging out with a woman she'd once held a knife to, her presence kind of ruined the whole night of solitude and self-pity she had been planning on.  "It's not safe out here, you know?"

Joyce rested her hands on her stomach as she looked over at her, "I could say the same to you."

Faith chuckled as she made a futile attempt to get more comfortable.  She tapped her forehead, "But I can sense 'em coming."

"Is that a slayer power?"

"Mmhmm."

Joyce hmm'd in response, and for a while they just sat there observing the night sky together.  Faith didn't really know any constellations, but she did recognize the Big Dipper hanging upside down just over the row of trees on the far side of the yard.  From this angle it looked more like a kite, or maybe a road sign that had been hit by a truck.

"Why are you sitting out here, if you don't mind my asking?"

"It’s a nice night," Faith said with a shrug.  And that was true enough.  Sure, she was only out here because there was nothing else to do, and because it kept her away from Buffy, but whatever.

Joyce looked back up at the sky and seemed to agree.  "I never took you for someone who would appreciate such things."

Again Faith shrugged.  An old memory was playing in her head, something she hadn't thought about in years.  "When I was a kid – eleven or twelve years old, I guess - I was hiding from my mom on the roof of our house, and I was lookin' up at the sky, just like this, ‘cept in Boston the night sky just looks kinda yellowish-brown, you know?  You couldn’t really see shi-, er, um, anything, you know?  Then, all of sudden, there was this power failure.”  The memory grew more vivid by the second.  She could feel the cold and hear the growing chatter of neighbors.  “I stayed where I was, and the longer I watched, the brighter the stars got.  It was amazing.  You could see the Milky Way arching over everything, and shooting stars and stuff.  It was like that all night long, and I stayed up there the whole time, just watching."

“Next day, I went to the library and read everything I could about space and stuff.  Most of it I didn't understand, but I liked the pictures."

Dimly, Faith was aware that she'd just shared more about herself in the past sixty seconds with Buffy’s mom than she had in the past twelve months with Buffy, Giles, Angel, even the Mayor.  "Wasn't sure if I wanted to be an astronaut, or an astronomer, or whatever.  I just wanted to be _something_."  _'I just wanted to get away,'_ she nearly added.

Faith didn't need to look over at Joyce to see the question written on her face.   _'What the hell happened?  How'd you go from a dreamy-eyed little kid to a cold-blooded murderer?'_

"Mom never believed me when I said I went to the library.  She’d wouldn’t even go with me to get a card.  And, I dunno, after a few months of all the shit goin' on at school and at home, I just sort of forgot about that stuff."  The vastness of the universe took a back seat to an empty stomach.

"What was she like?"

Faith frowned.  She hated questions like that.   The last thing she wanted was people looking at her and thinking, _'Poor Faith.  She's had such a rough life.  No wonder she’s such a fuckup.'_   That’s certainly how the prison shrink looked at her.  Hell, practically every girl in the place had the same damn story.  "Mom had good days and bad.  If you could keep her away from the hard stuff she was usually all right."

"What did she do for a living?"

Faith sighed, accidentally letting some of her anger show.  "Look, if we're gonna talk, can it be about something else?"

Joyce was silent for a long moment, but the questions didn’t stop, "What was it like when you became a slayer?"

 _‘Better.’_  Faith’s expression brightened a little.  "Oh, that was pretty awesome.  I mean, fighting vamps and stuff out on the street, it was like being a superhero.  Had a watcher too, she was..." Faith paused.  How long had it been since she last thought of her?  "She was cool."

Evidently, Joyce had some idea of what became of her watcher because she let that subject drop too.  _Thank God_.

"Do you ever think of going back to Boston?"

"Fu-," she caught herself.  "No.  There's nothing for me there.  It's all right - don't get me wrong - even if the weather in L.A. puts it to shame, but no.  Not a chance.  There’s nothing for me there.”  Too many memories.  Too many old wounds that didn’t need reopening.  Being in Sunnydale was bad enough.

Faith thought about the friends she used to have there.  Some of them had harder childhoods than hers by a fucking long shot.  She knew a girl who ended up pregnant at fifteen and a kid who needed reconstructive surgery on his face after his dad found out he was gay.  Faith didn’t know which possibility was worse, that her old friends were all gone, or that they were still there, stuck in the same old ruts – the drinking, the drugs, the abusive relationships – that they’d been in when she left.

“There’s no one?”

Her thoughts turned darker.  “There were people in Southie who looked at me like I was a stain on their shoe.  It’s like that everywhere you go really; people size you up and the only thing going through their minds is, how can this chick be useful to _me_?”  She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself.  “And once they get what they want, they don’t give a shit about what happens to you.  Foster parents?  They just want their check.  Teachers?  They just want to not be hassled.  The guy on the street?  He just wants a good time.  They think you’re a lost cause anyway, so why bother worrying about it?  Why bother treating you like a person?  Look at what happened to her parents.  Look at how she dresses.  Look at the punks she hangs out with.  She’s probably doing drugs anyway.  She’s probably shoplifting something right now.”

A familiar anger burned inside of her.  She remembered the dead looks in her foster-parents’ eyes.  The way the cops stood around completely helpless when her mom would call them on her abusive boyfriend of the week.  The way passing women would sneer at her and pull their children closer like she was a criminal.

A fucking criminal.  She clenched her fists.  "And you know what the worst part of it is?  All those people back home, the ones who used me, the ones who thought I would never amount to nothing.  They were right the whole time!  They were fucking _right_."

Joyce gasped.  “Faith…”

She had to shut her eyes to steady her breathing - something she’d learned in prison - slow, steady breaths from her diaphragm, always through the nose, just like the shrink had told her.  The hard part was visualizing something positive, something happy to cancel out her dark thoughts.  Usually, she drew a blank at that part, but when she opened her eyes this time, there were ten-thousand stars still twinkling down at her.  It was a strangely comforting sight, and slowly, she was able press all her rage back down where it couldn’t hurt anyone. 

Again, the night sky triggered a long-forgotten memory.  "You know, I even went to a planetarium show once?  It was the only time my mom ever managed to scrounge up enough money to let me go on a field trip.  So, they had this big-ass projector to light up the ceiling, right?”

Her eyes were a little watery, but though Joyce seemed more than a little surprised by the sudden one-eighty in the conversation, she nodded.

"Well, they showed how the constellations change over time, ‘cuz all the stars are moving in their own directions, you know?  Totally blew my mind as a kid.  You look at the stars all your life, and you think they’ve always been where they are now, that they never change, but they really do.  They’re moving all the time, you just can’t see it.”  Faith snorted.  “Sometimes I feel like that too.  Like I’ve changed, _am changing_ , but no one notices.”

Joyce’s eyes were still locked intently on hers.  “Buffy might be a little stubborn at times, but she has a big heart.  Just give her time.  It’s only been, what, four months?”

“Yeah,” Faith breathed, her shoulders slumping.  It was stupid of her to expect forgiveness so soon.  This wasn’t like a year ago when she would get a craving for something and just went out and indulged herself.  No, forgiveness didn’t work like that.  It had to be earned.  Except, sadly, she had no hope in Hell of ever affording Buffy’s price.

"At least you two have been able to go on your patrols without killing each other," Joyce offered.

Faith laughed.  “Yeah.  But it was touch and go for a while.”

Joyce smiled a little sadly.

“It just feels like I’m banging my head against a wall with her.”

“I had to raise her, I know the feeling.” 

Faith smiled.

Over their heads, the stars continued their slow journey across the sky.  Mercifully, Joyce didn’t push any further, though Faith could see in her eyes that she wanted to.  They just watched the heavens for a long time in silence.  How the woman was able to stand being so close to her, Faith didn’t know.  She didn’t dare think about it.

Eventually though, Joyce yawned and pushed herself up.  “Well, I’d better turn in.  Do you want anything from the kitchen?”

Faith chuckled and shook her head.  She’d already eaten like five meals today.  “Nah.  But thanks.”  Keeping her eyes skyward, she waited until the glass door slide open.  “Oh, and Mrs. S?  Don’t tell anyone I said all that stuff.”

The smile on Joyce’s face was practically audible, “I wouldn’t dream of it.  But -”

It was clear what the woman was going to say.  Faith couldn’t imagine ever wanting to talk even more about her past… but it was nice to know that maybe she could if she wanted to.  “Yeah, I know.  And thanks.”

“Anytime,” Joyce said, and shut the door gently behind her.


	5. Chapter 5

_The Fire in Her Eyes_ by Imrryr

Act 1 – Chapter 5

…

“There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.”

― Mary Shelley, _Frankenstein_

…

Sunnydale. May 4, 2000

…

The next morning, Buffy bounded down the stairs to find Giles and Willow in the dining room together, studying a large book laid out on the table while the soulful sounds of Destiny’s Child played over the portable radio.  She hovered around for a minute before coming to conclusion that whatever they were talking about really was as indecipherable as she’d first thought.

When she wandered into the kitchen, she found Tara by the sliding glass door with a cup of coffee.  She was gazing out into the backyard at Faith, who looked like she was shadowboxing, or practicing Tai Chi or something.  Tara gave a little nod of acknowledgment when she joined her.  Buffy could count on one hand the number of times they’d had a conversation without Willow being in the same room.

Her brow furrowed in thought.  Maybe she’d need zero hands?  “How long has she been out there?” she asked, hoping that the sounds of Sunnydale’s top 40 hits would keep Willow from overhearing.  It was much too early in the morning for another fight about Faith.

“Ever since she came downstairs.”  Tara was studying the girl intently, and admittedly it wasn’t hard to understand why.  Once upon a time, Buffy used watch Faith train … if ‘watched’ was the right word.  It probably wasn’t.  ‘Leering’ might’ve been more accurate.  Well, _discreetly_ leering, of course.

Faith’s technique had been all strength in those days, concerned only with overpowering her opponent, not outsmarting them.  It was hard on the equipment, and even harder on Giles.  She held nothing back.  Admittedly, that was part of the attraction.  It was just who Faith was.

This morning was different, but what Buffy saw was enticing in its own way.  Faith’s deliberate, flowing movements were more akin to stretching exercises.  It was mesmerizing to watch her move so steadily, muscles flexing, her body in constant motion, going from one form to another, in total control of her strength.  Did she learn that in prison?  “Do you know what she’s doing?” Buffy asked.

“I think it’s Tai Chi… or at least, some of it is.  It’s having a positive effect on her aura.”

 _‘Oh.’_   It was easy to forget that such a timid woman had the ability to see so much in people.  “What else can you see in auras?”

“Emotions, desires...” Tara said, trailing off for a second.  “I try not to look too deeply, it’s kind of an invasion of privacy.  When Faith was in your body, the feeling that there was something wrong was impossible to miss, but now that she’s back where she belongs –“

Buffy waited, but Tara didn’t continue.  Faith kicked the air several times, her routine becoming more intense, more like sparring.  Buffy felt the slayer stirring within her, wanting to come out and fight, even if it was just for practice.  _‘That would be fun,’_ she thought absently; pitting themselves against each other like they sometimes did in the library, back when there were no bad feelings.  Then she shook her head when she realized what she was thinking.

“Your auras have an unusual interaction with each other.”

Buffy blinked.  Her heart was beating a bit fast maybe, and there was that normal unsettled feeling she’d always had in Faith’s presence, but there was no attraction, or _interaction_ , or whatever.  “Is that like, a slayer thing?”

“Maybe,” Tara said, as Faith continued her exercises, her back now turned towards them.  “Some auras naturally attract each other.  That could be due to your shared calling, I guess.  There’s never been two slayers active at the same time.”  Tara’s hair had fallen into her eyes as she looked at her feet.

 _‘Oh, well, yeah.  That was probably it.’_ Again there was an awkward silence.  Buffy became suddenly aware that her friend-making skills were a little suspect these days.  “Is something wrong?”

It took some time before Tara nodded.  “I’m a little worried about the spell, actually.”

“You think it won’t work?”

She shook her head.  “I _know_ it will work.”

Buffy frowned, totally lost.  “Then you don’t think Faith will help?”

“Not exactly.”  Tara’s voice became a whisper, “I’m more worried about Willow, actually.”

“ _Willow_?”  Buffy straightened and glanced over her shoulder.  Her best-friend was in the other room still discussing things with Giles.  She looked normal enough.  That green shirt suited her nicely.

“It’s not that Willow won’t do all she can to help, of course she will, but with the way she’s been acting lately…” Tara sighed.  “She’s just been so _obsessed_ with Faith.  She still thinks Faith is going to try something, like maybe during the spell itself.”

“Oh.”  Buffy understood the concern, even imagined the same thing in her darker thoughts on the subject, but the longer Faith was here, the less it felt like the girl was going to snap and turn all evil again.  Maybe that just meant Buffy was getting soft; that Faith’s constantly wounded looks and soulful brown eyes were getting to her.  It wouldn’t exactly be the first time.

She wanted them to be friends again, like last year, just without all the lying and stabbing bits, but surely it was too late for that?  Faith had _hurt_ her, more completely than Angel had ever managed, and Angel had an excuse.

Buffy let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.  “Maybe you should talk to her before we leave?  Convince her to play nice until this is over?”

Tara’s answering smile was a little sad.  “Actually, I was thinking maybe _you_ could talk to her.”

“Huh?”

Again, Tara looked at her feet.  “Willow’s going to say that I don’t know what Faith’s like.  It’ll mean more if it comes from you.”

 _‘Yeah.’_   Buffy was pretty sure that Willow came preprogrammed to say those exact words when anyone other than Buffy brought up the subject.  But, _ugh_ , few things in life were more terrifying than trying to convince Willow of something when her mind was already made up.  “Sure,” she mumbled, sulking as she turned to meet her doom.  “Give the slayer the hard job.”

* * *

Faith huffed as she finished another series of quick jabs to the air.  _‘Maintain your center-line.  No, use your entire body, not just your arm.’_   She could just picture Ying in the prison yard, cursing her in Chinese every time she fucked something up, which was pretty damn often considering how tired and distracted she’d been lately.

She couldn’t help she was a lousy student, always had been.  Discipline just didn’t come naturally to her; not in school, not her personal life, not even when it came to fighting, and that was the only thing she’d ever been any good at.

Well, that and sex, of course.

Faith punched the air again.  She wasn’t even sure who she was angry at anymore.  Sometimes it just came to her all at once: memories of home and Sunnydale and the way Willow looked at her as she walked by this morning.  It all just kind of spiraled into itself.

She shut her eyes.  _‘Control yourself, everyone else can think whatever the fuck they want.’_  Ying and Angel kept reinforcing the same basic lesson.  Though, what worried her now was how she was struggling to remember it.  If only the Big Guy were here now to offer some encouragement.  Joyce was nice - hell, she was actually kind of awesome - but only Angel really understood the depths to which she had sunk.

“Faith?”

She stopped herself in mid-punch, surprised to find Willow’s girlfriend standing before her.  “Um, hey,” she said lamely.   “What’s up?”

Tara wrung her hands.  “I, uh, wanted to talk to you about the enjoining spell.”

Faith let her arms fall to her sides.  “Oh, sure,” she said, standing there awkwardly for a moment before leading Tara to the back porch.  Why wasn’t Giles handling this?  She’d hardly ever spoken to Tara except for that time at the Bronze, and really, first impressions and all...

“Well, as Mister Giles mentioned, the spell combines all our powers into one, but the thing is, it’s a voluntary process, it doesn’t just happen because you say a few magical words.  You’ll have some control over what you share with Buffy.”

Faith crossed her arms as she leaned heavily against the wooden railing.  “You think I’m gonna hold back.  That I’m not gonna help Buffy when the time comes?”  The bitterness in her voice was something she had no control over.  Tara was a genuinely nice person, she practically radiated niceness, but Faith was fucking tired of everyone already ‘knowing’ what she was thinking and what she was going to do before she did. 

They didn’t know shit.

She was caught a little off guard by how Tara had no trouble meeting her angry gaze.  “The power needs to be freely given, and the more we hold back, the less effective the spell will be.  Willow and Giles won’t have a problem because they’ve known Buffy forever.  Their desire to protect her comes naturally to them, so their powers will come naturally to Buffy.”

Faith sighed.  The implication was clear.  She had spent most of her time in Sunnydale trying to hurt Buffy, to ruin her life in the most complete way possible.  Sure, those desires were gone now, but who could say what would happen in the heat of the moment, especially when there was magic involved?

“For the spell to be as effective as possible, you’ll need to concentrate on the positive aspects of your relationship with Buffy.”

That earned a sharp laugh.  Faith couldn’t think of a single pleasant moment with Buffy that wasn’t tinged in some way with regret, or jealousy, or feelings of betrayal.  “Not many of those to choose from, Glinda.” 

Tara blushed and smiled at her new nickname.  “I mean, concentrate on the way she makes you feel.  The positive things.”

“No offense, but how do you know how I feel?  Yeah, I never actually went out and tried to kill her, but I did just about everything else a person could do to fuck up someone’s life.”

The smile disappeared.  “I… don’t really know how to say this, but I can sense how you feel about her.”

“ _What_?” Faith asked sharply, tilting her head.

“I can read auras,” Tara began.  Her big blue eyes never wavered, and for some reason Faith could sense the truth in her words as Tara attempted to explain what that power entailed.  Apparently, everyone’s bodies gave off a kind of light that only a practiced eye could see.  By observing that light, Tara could read people’s emotions, hidden desires, even stuff that the person didn’t know themselves.

Faith finally understood; it was that night at the Bronze and the way Buffy’s aura had been fractured… that was what led to everyone finally realizing that something was up.  Funny how Tara was the only one perceptive enough to figure it out. 

Faith’s eyes darted nervously from one side of Joyce’s yard to the other.  “So, if you can see all this, then you know what Buffy thinks about me?”

Now Tara was hiding behind her hair again.  It was kind of cute.  “It’s, um, hard to say.  It’s not exactly like mind-reading,” she explained.  “Buffy has very strong feelings, but they’re conflicted.  I really shouldn’t say more than that.”

“Why not?”

She brushed the hair from her eyes.  “Would you want me to tell Buffy how you feel about her?”

 _‘Fuck, no.’_   “Hmm.  Good point.”

“I _can_ say that it’s not too late,” she said, eyes brightening.

Faith’s heart started to race.  She wanted to stamp down those faint stirrings of hope that suddenly arose at the mere suggestion that maybe, just maybe, Buffy could look at her one day and not see a murdering psychopath.

“Forgiveness won’t happen overnight, but today is a good day to start, isn’t it?”

She let out a breath.  Tara sounded like a certain guy she knew.  “So, what you’re basically saying is we’re gonna defeat Adam with the power of love, like some Care Bears shit or something?”

Tara laughed.  “Well, the idea is to imbue Buffy with our greatest assets.  You want Buffy to win, right?”

Faith huffed and looked away.  “Of course I do.”

“That’s not so different from love, is it?  We want to see the people we love become the best they can be.”

“Yeah, well, maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be, but I don’t know if you can call what I feel for B ‘love.’”  _Obsession_ , maybe.  “It certainly wasn’t mutual or anything.”

Despite Faith’s petulance, Tara didn’t lose her patience.  “You need to put all that aside though, if you want this to work.”

Faith sighed.  “What about you?  You’re going to be at this magical love gathering too, but you don’t love Buffy.”  Her dark eyes locked with Tara’s, “ _Do you_?”

This time, she actually did flinch.  “N- No, but I do love Willow, and Buffy is very important to her.”

Faith slumped in her spot.  How different would her life have been if she’d had a friend as selfless and kind as Tara?  Completely unrecognizable, probably.  “Are all witches as wise as you?”

“I, um, don’t know about _me_ …” she said, blushing again.  “But as a whole, yes.  Understanding human nature is part of what makes a good witch.”

“What’s Red’s excuse then?”

“Willow’s very… _protective_ ,” Tara replied, smiling a little, though there was worry in her eyes too.

Faith grunted.  “That’s one way of putting it.”

Her tone grew more serious, “I don’t want you to think about Willow while the spell is going on.”

“Fine, fine,” Faith said, rolling her eyes.  “No guarantees, but yeah, I’ll try.”

A moment later, the kitchen door slid open and Buffy exited, followed by Willow.  They both looked a little red around the eyes, like they’d been having a conversation of their own, only a much more emotional one.

Willow stood in front of the open door until all eyes were on her and then let out a very put-upon sigh.  “We need to put aside our differences if this spell is going to work.”

Okay, that line had obviously been rehearsed, and it was all she said, but Tara and Buffy both smiled, and though Faith waited for the following threat, it never came.  Swallowing any residual bitterness, she straightened her back and looked Willow straight in the eyes.  “I promise I won’t try anything.  If I do, you can turn me into a piece of cheese and feed me to your pet rat or something.”

Buffy sort of half-smiled at that, and Faith felt that ever present weight on her chest ease up a bit.

“Girls?”  It was Joyce, poking her head out the door.  “Mister Giles was asking for you.”

…

“I repeat, due to a gas-leak, all Sunnydale residents are being asked to stay indoors,” the voice from the radio announced.  “Last night’s aftershocks were centered at Sunnydale Caverns, resulting in numerous cave-ins, with further damage to the UCSD campus, and the SoCal pipeline.  An army spokesman has requested residents stay in their homes until further notice -”

Buffy sighed, “They’re really pushing this whole earthquake thing, aren’t they?”

“Sunnydale residents are known for being easily duped,” Giles said, turning down the radio and frowning as the last of the Mayor’s maps were laid out on the dining room table.  “Present company excepted, of course.”

Everyone had gathered around, excluding Buffy’s mom who claimed she didn’t want to be a nuisance.  Faith stood alone on the opposite end of the table, forcing her to look at the maps upside down, but it was preferable to being too close to Willow.  Sure, a truce had been declared, but better safe than sorry, she thought.

“Do you think they’ll blow up the campus just to get to Adam?” Tara asked.

Willow flattened out one of the maps with her hand.  “When your only tool is a hammer…”

Giles hummed in agreement as he sipped his tea.  “Unfortunately, in this case, the hammer is a self-propelled howitzer.”

Buffy sighed.  “Thanks for the depressing metaphors, guys.”  She took a bite of one of the donuts Giles and the rest of Team Magic had brought with them.  Paper-clipped to the bag was a picture of Xander grinning like a dork.  He was with the group in spirit.  “I hope I’m not the only one who’s noticed that the military apparently knows where my mom lives, yet Adam has access to the same information and hasn’t gone after any of us.”

“Well, it’s kind of like the Borg,” Willow said with a distracted air as she hunched over the table, studying the largest of the maps intently.

“Huh?”

“The Borg, you know, from _Star Trek_.  In one episode, Commander Riker and his away-team beamed aboard their ship but all the Borg ignored him because they didn’t perceive them as a threat.  Adam doesn’t perceive us as a threat either.”  She looked up when she realized everyone in the room was staring at her.  “Hey!  Xander and I used to watch it together after school.”

Buffy shook her head and chuckled.  “I don’t know you.”

Giles was less pleased.  "If I learn that Professor Walsh was inspired to make Adam after watching _Star Trek_ , I think I just might weep."

“I guess you’re right though,” Buffy said, ignoring him.  “Besides, it’s not like Adam is going to come right to the door or anything.”

A second later, the doorbell rang and Giles nearly spilled tea all over himself.  “ _Bloody hell_.”

Instantly, Faith and Buffy were up and in battle stance, but the tension evaporated as quickly as it appeared.  Faith didn’t feel anything unusual.  Whoever it was, it probably wasn’t a demon.  Besides, demons didn’t usually knock.

Joyce was already at the door when the two slayers got there.  “Expecting someone?” she asked.

“Not really,” Buffy said, and the uncertain look on her face had her mom backing away while she opened the door.

 _‘Oh,’_ Faith thought the second she laid sight on the man in his military uniform.  It was that dude in the jeep from yesterday.

“Miss Buffy Summers?” he asked, taking off his sunglasses and looking directly at Faith.

“Oh, um, no.  _That’s_ her, dude,” she said, pointing to Buffy.

Eying the blonde woman somewhat dubiously, he nodded, then reached into his jacket and pulled out a letter.  "This is for you," he said, handing it to her before marching quickly away without another word.

For a few moments, Buffy stared at the envelope in disbelief.  Upon opening it, she only seemed to grow more confused.  Faith looked over her shoulder, but was careful not to get too close.  Inside was a map of Downtown Sunnydale.  One red arrow pointed to a circle drawn around the University of Sunnydale campus.  At the bottom of the paper was a hastily written note, _‘Dear Miss Summers, at twelve-hundred hours today our forces will begin an assault on the Initiative compound.  Our men and women have been informed that if they see you or your friends, they are not to stop you from whatever you may have planned.  Signed, Colonel Gates_.’

Faith crossed her arms and nodded.  “Looks like the government’s beginning to understand who gets things done around here.”

Buffy smiled.  “If I survive the day, I’m having this framed.”

“Very kind of them to let us know of their plans in advance,” Giles said as he finished reading over the letter.  Soon, they were all gathered around the table again.  It was still almost three-hours before noon, but the tension in the air had increased dramatically.

Buffy’s tone went completely serious, “Yeah, but they’re walking into a trap.”

“I tend to agree,” Giles replied, equally seriously.

Willow shook her head.  “So, what do we do?”

“Well, I suppose we could go in ahead of them,” Giles suggested.

 _‘That’s a terrible idea,_ ’ Faith thought.  “If Adam does has some sort of trap set, you could be blown into a thousand little slayer pieces before you even got through the door.”  Sure, this spell was designed to give Buffy superpowers, or maybe that should be _super_ -superpowers, but it didn’t necessarily make her explosion-proof.

Buffy frowned, but it looked like she was thinking the same thing.

“And there’s no other way in?” Giles asked her.

“I went over these for hours last night,” Buffy replied, gesturing at the maps.  “There’s nothing there we didn’t already know.  It was a waste of time.”

Faith rolled her eyes and bit deeply into her donut to keep from saying anything.  She also had a nice tall cup of reasonably warm coffee sitting in front of her, courtesy of Tara.  That girl was definitely all right.  How she ended up with the Wicked Witch of the West as a girlfriend was a goddamned mystery.

“Well, _there’s_ the secret exit to the caves,” Willow was saying, running a finger along the route.  “But we can assume that route is out of commission.  And here’s Lab 314.”  She shook her head and pushed away from the table.  “The Mayor clearly knew more than we did a week ago, but there’s nothing new here.  You’d think he would’ve had all sorts of secret tunnels built,” she added, looking directly at Faith.

Faith swallowed while sharing just a hint of a glare with her, but hey, that was progress.

“You know of no other tunnels,” Giles asked, a bit more kindly.

She shook her head.  Mayor Wilkins had lots of secrets, but that didn’t mean she was privy to them.

Tara ran a hand over the largest of the maps, the one that depicted the entire city, from the college campus in the northwest, to the docks in the south, and the High School in the east.  “I think...“  Her brow furrowed in thought.  “I think there’s something else here.”

Willow inched forward, tilting her head.  “What do you see?”

Closing her eyes and whispering under her breath, Tara stretched out her hand, palm down.  In one sweeping movement, she brushed her arm from left to right.  When she opened her eyes again, glowing red outlines appeared on all the maps, but especially the big one.  The outlines were the exact same color of the Mayor’s demonic sigil; the color of blood.

Willow gasped.  “Wow…”

“What is all this?” Buffy asked.

“Very interesting,” Giles said.  “A hidden network of tunnels only a witch or a demon could see.”

Faith met Tara’s eyes.  “Nice work, Glinda.”

Tara smiled and ducked her face behind her hair.

As expected, Willow was _not_ smiling, and she not so subtly entwined her hand with Tara’s own, which the older girl seemed to take as a romantic gesture.  So, Red was the possessive type.  Why wasn’t that surprising?

Buffy was shaking her head.  “Why are there so many tunnels?”  Indeed, if this map was to be believed, there were a hundred caverns of various sizes, all twisting and turning and radiating out from the Hellmouth like some kind of demonic spider’s web.

Giles looked as fascinated as Faith had ever seen him.  “Every Hellmouth is associated with at least a few caves and underground chambers.  They attract demons, but most demons can’t abide the light of day.  The Sunnydale Hellmouth is very old indeed.”

“Guess that adds to the general hellish ambience,” Buffy mumbled, craning to get a better look.  She pointed to the campus.  “What’s this line?”

Willow traced the wide double-line with her finger.  When touched, the glowing ink briefly turned blue before returning to its natural demonic color.  Huh.  Perhaps Willow wasn’t secretly an unholy creature from the depths of Hell after all.  “It must be a man-made passageway," she said.  "See how straight it is?  It runs from the Initiative all the way to,” she trailed off, following the line as it ran like an arrow towards its destination.  “Sunnydale High.”

Buffy blinked and a smile began to grow on her lips.  “That’s it!  If Adam doesn’t go through the army, he’ll have to come out here!”  She tapped the map, briefly amused by the way the lines turned blue when she did so.  Meanwhile, Tara had taken a discreet step back and Faith could sense her increasing discomfort.  Strange.  Perhaps she felt alienated?  Faith could certainly relate to that.  Once the Scoobies got going, it was like no one else existed.

“Odd,” Giles said.  “It runs under the entire town.  Why would the Initiative do this?  Digging a tunnel straight to the Hellmouth is just asking for trouble.”

Growing ever so slightly bored, Faith took a look at the documents Buffy had earlier discarded as uninteresting: blank sheets of paper and maps of places like Los Angeles and Cleveland and another one rather ominously titled ‘The Second Plane of Hell.’  At the bottom of the pile was a piece of stationary with ‘Office of the Mayor of Sunnydale’ printed along the top, but where the paper had once been otherwise blank, now it was glowing with hand-written words.  She couldn’t read them, but the writing was familiar.  _‘The Boss.’_   She pushed the paper into Giles’ line of sight.

Instantly, Giles leaned closer, his eyes widening.  “Ancient Greek.  Fascinating.  Where did you find this?”

Buffy pressed closer too.  “That’s one of the papers we picked up at the Mayor’s office.  What’s it say?”

The watcher cleared his throat.  “November 27th, 1998.  I finally tracked down the voll I had ordered months ago.  Sadly, our new neighbors beneath the University intercepted my shipment.  Perhaps they believed volls would make good pets?  The poor creature broke loose from its cage and killed a number of them before it was able to escape.  By the time it burrowed its way to safety, it was in such a sad state that there was no choice but to put it down.”  

“Unfortunately, I doubt I can procure another one in time, but its tunnel may still prove useful.  I believe when the time comes I will have to pay our new friends a visit.  Responsible pet ownership is no laughing matter.”

That sounded like the Mayor all right.  “What the hell’s a voll?” Faith asked.

Giles grimaced.  “It’s essentially a giant worm with teeth.  Adults are about ten feet wide, forty feet long, and they, um, dig tunnels mostly.  Sometimes they pop up from the sewers and eat people.  They tend to be attracted to places with strong demonic energy.”

“Really?” Buffy asked, her eyes widening.  “And you didn’t mention this before _because_?”

“They’re only found on the island of Sumatra.  In fact, rumor has it that one ate the last slayer who lived there.”

“Eww.”

Giles grimaced and looked at Buffy apologetically.

“What does the rest of it say?” Tara asked.

“Hmm.  For every pound of meat, add one cup of blood…”  His brow furrowed as he scanned the rest of the note, “flour… salt… rhylok eggs…” Giles stood back.  “It’s a recipe for voll soufflé.”

Faith suddenly had an urge to throw up things that had been digested months ago.  She’d shared _dinners_ with that man -

Giles was quick to change the subject.  “Well, then.  We could prepare our surprise at the High School.  Allow the army to flush Adam out for us?”

“I think it’s Adam who will be doing the flushing,” Buffy said pointedly, before grimacing at the way that sounded.  “Besides, he might not know this tunnel exists.  If we wait for the army to attack, we could end up being on the wrong side of town when he breaks loose.  If he _does_ break loose.”

Everyone seemed pretty unconvinced.  There were a lot of ‘ifs’ involved in this plan.

“I think that, considering his history, we should assume that Adam knows what the army has planned,” Giles said finally.  “That being the case, we should get to him first and perform the spell as soon as possible.”

“Can we even get down there?” Faith asked, indicating the cave.

Buffy nodded.  “We have ropes.  Last summer, Giles sent me into one of the caverns beneath the school to find some books.  There were caves in every direction, I just didn’t realize they went on for so long.”

“Giles sent you into the Hellmouth to find _books_?”

“Not _into_ the Hellmouth, just really close to it,” she corrected.

“They were really important books,” Giles added.

“Uh huh.”

He flinched when the doorbell rang again.  Everyone listened intently as Joyce descended the stairs, paused suspiciously as she looked through the window, then opened the door.  “Um, Buffy?  One of your friends is –“

“I can’t believe you were planning to go without me!” Anya cried from the other room.

Buffy was visibly surprised when their unexpected visitor stepped hurriedly into the dining room.  "You're coming along?"

Anya looked exited and vaguely terrifying.  "And why _shouldn't_ I come along?"

" _Well_ –“

"If Adam kills all of you, then Xander stays in prison - at least until the glamour wears off in a few days – _and_ that means he doesn't get paid, right?"

Giles pursed his lips.  "That is correct."

"Then I'm coming!"

He did an admirable job of not letting his annoyance show, “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have someone watching over us while the spell is being cast.”

Everyone in the room seemed to agree with that, though Faith had her doubts.  "Can you fight?" she asked.

Anya raised her chin.  "I was a vengeance demon for over a thousand years."

Faith blinked.  "Oh.”  She looked her up and down a second time.  Anya didn't look like much like a demon.  Not like, say, Cordelia, or the Wicked Witch of the West over there.

"Anya's human now," Tara added, earning an irritated quirk of the lips from her girlfriend.  Faith rolled her eyes.  Willow could stand to learn that jealousy was a completely unattractive character trait.

Buffy appeared to be resigned, "It's a long story.”

Faith sighed.  The world had been full of long stories ever since she’d woken from her coma.  What was one more?

…

“Ugh, caves,” Buffy muttered to herself.

“Technically, it’s a tunnel,” Willow replied, earning the barest grunt of recognition.

The descent into what was left of Sunnydale High’s basement hadn’t actually been too difficult.  Construction crews had already cleared out most of the ruins, leaving great holes in the earth which they’d only just begun to fill in with waste material.

Like a tour guide, Giles pointed out the Hellmouth as they passed, now lost under freshly poured concrete and scaffolding.  They were actually going to rebuild the school on top of it.  It was almost comical.

Finding the correct route through the caves was another matter, and they wasted the better part of an hour looking for the proper tunnel.  In just the eighteen months since Mayor Wilkins had drawn the map, practically everything had jostled around.  Caves that were supposed to go on for miles came to dead ends at twenty feet, other caves curved back onto themselves, and still others seemed to shift even as they travelled through them.

It was all appropriately creepy considering their proximity to the pit of Hell.

Finally, however, they found it: an unusually smooth tunnel about fifteen feet wide that never narrowed or changed course.  Faith still had no idea what a voll looked like, but she was quite certain she never wanted to find out.

The hike was a long one.  With their slayer sight, Buffy and Faith probably could’ve navigated through the gloom with just the light from their two magical pendants, but they had four other people to protect.  So, Buffy and Giles carried flashlights, while everyone except for Anya and the two slayers shouldered backpacks with the necessary magical reagents.  This was really not the best place to fight something, and if a demon did show up, Buffy had given firm orders for everyone to get out of the way and give the slayers room to take care of it.

As they walked, water would occasionally drip onto their heads, or at least Faith hoped it was water.  They were underneath a complex network of sewer lines and storm drains after all.  She tried not to think about it.

“I should think you would be used to it by now,” Giles said.  “Caves have been a common hiding place for demons for as long as there have been slayers.”

Faith was admiring the axe she held in her right hand, enjoying the weight of it.  “How long _have_ there been slayers anyway?”

“The Council estimates ten-thousand years, possibly more.”

As they walked on, Faith tried to estimate how many slayers that would entail.  Buffy had been one for what, five years?  But she was probably a special case.  That Kendra chick had only lasted like six months or something.  She frowned, realizing those two were the only other slayers she knew anything about.  Her first watcher had mentioned some others from time to time, but of course Faith had never really paid attention.

 _‘If a slayer lives an average of maybe two years… that’s what, five-thousand slayers?‘_   She wasn’t sure of the math.  It was a fuck-ton of slayers either way.  She bet none of them ever got paid.

Without warning there came an unearthly deafening roar from ahead, unlike anything Faith had ever heard before.  The two slayers instinctively leapt to each side of the tunnel just as something shadowy and massive rushed by.  Faith regretted it immediately.  It was on its way to Giles and the rest of the gang.

A second later and the tunnel was awash in light.  The creature roared and staggered back as its chest burst into flame.  _Fuck_.  It was a goddamn minotaur or something; nine feet tall with huge horns and a face like a bull.  Buffy was quickly on her feet and dashed towards it, easily leaping onto its back.  Faith was about to follow when she sensed something else.  She spun around, and in the orange light came face to face with a white-skinned demon, like something out of Hellraiser, crawling out of a hole in the wall, his naked body covered in fresh blood.

Faith’s grip tightened.   The axe felt perfect in her hands; it was finally time to use it.  The demon stopped short when their eyes met.  “All right, Freakshow,” she said, eyes glinting.  “Forgive me if I’m a little rusty.”

With a wailing scream, he lunged for her, but Faith easily sidestepped the attack, giving him a powerful kick into the wall of the cave for his trouble.  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Buffy fighting that crazy horned creature as the other Scoobies hurried back from where they came.  She ducked, and rolled, and was generally doing a fantastic job of making a complete nuisance of herself.

Faith’s demon was only getting angrier and angrier.  “So, what’s with the nudity?  We interrupt something?”  Again, Freakshow shrieked and Faith grimaced as the walls shook and the sound echoed down the cave.  “Ooh, touchy subject, huh?”  He swung at her, but she dodged the blow and her axe blade bit deeply into his arm.

Another scream, this time of pain as he struggled to cover his gushing wound.  God, this fucker was noisy.

“I’d love to stick around,” Faith said, "but you've got to split."   The sharp blade easily cut through the creature's neck, shutting him up for good and sending his head rolling back into the abyss.  She spun around.  In the fading light, Buffy was still struggling with her enormous minotaur friend, though his torso was crossed with cuts and his butt had a crossbow bolt sticking out of it.  When the slayer sent the demon reeling, Faith cried out her name.

It came to her as easy as breathing; with just the right amount of heft, she sent the bloody axe sailing through the air and Buffy caught the handle effortlessly, allowing the momentum to spin her arm around and carve a deep and fatal gash into the creature’s chest.  He fell to the ground in a heap, leaving Buffy and Faith sanding there in the enveloping silence, breathing heavily and staring into each other’s eyes as the sounds of approaching footsteps grew louder.

It felt good, really good, but the moment was broken when Giles shined a flashlight in their faces.  “I think we’d better hurry,” he said, the color returning to his skin.

…

With only thirty minutes before the army’s attack, the tunnel finally widened before opening up into a huge chamber.  The floor here was perfectly smooth, as if carved out intentionally, and marred only by several boulders scattered by the wall on the far side.  When their flashlights shone on them, it became clear that they weren’t boulders at all, but rather the bodies of slain demons; several resembled Buffy’s bull-headed friend.  “I believe that explains the smell,” Giles said as he gently kicked a desiccated tentacle with the toe of his boot.

“What is this place?” Faith wondered out loud.  “A demon dumping ground?”

Tara looked alarmed.  “Could the Initiative have dumped these bodies here?”

Buffy shook her head.  “In the days before we first tried the enjoining spell, Adam was calling to them,” she said, examining another fallen minotaur before sniffing the air and backing quickly away.  “Demons were practically knocking on the Initiative’s door, trying to get in.  Some of them must have tried to get in this way.”

“Looks like they didn’t make it,” Faith mumbled.  That was a positive sign.

Giles was observing the massive spike sticking out of the back of an unlucky polgara demon.  “So much for pan-demon cooperation.”  He turned his attention to the far wall.  “Start looking for a door,” he said, and everyone spread out.

A few minutes later and the anxiety level was through the roof.  They’d examined every inch of rock face.  Time was running out, but there was no door anywhere.

Tara and Willow continued the search while Giles sat down on a rock, looking completely lost.

Anya finally caught up to them.  Throughout this expedition through subterranean Sunnydale she’d made no secret of how utterly bored she was.  Still, her skill at bulls-eying demon butts with her crossbow could not be faulted.  “Why are you guys just standing there?”

“I should think that was pretty obvious,” Giles muttered, making no effort to mask his frustration.

Stepping past him, and carefully avoiding the dead bodies, Anya walked further along the wall until she came to an unassuming pile of sandstone boulders.  “It’s just a glamour spell,” she said, placing a hand on one of them.

Willow was quick to disagree.  “No way.  I would’ve sensed it.”

Anya rolled her eyes.   “Any _decent_ witch could put up a glamour that would be completely undetectable to the average person, of which I am not.”

Faith smiled to herself when Red narrowed her eyes.  Completely oblivious, Anya spoke a few words – Greek, perhaps - and the rocks soon began to shine from within, bathing the cave in a white light.  “See?” she drawled.  “Whoever did this must’ve used the glyph of Daedalus.  Excellent choice.”

“Wait.  Daedalus?” Willow asked, surprised.  “As in _the_ Daedalus?  The guy who built the labyrinth?”

Anya nodded.  “I got stuck in one once, all because I accidentally stirred up a _tiny_ little rebellion in Crete.  I swear, the Venetians had _no_ sense of humor about that sort of thing.”

Giles sighed and tapped his watch.  “If you would please –“

“Fine, fine.  You’re lucky I’m here, you know.  The only way to see through these sorts of glamours is with experience.  I was stuck in that labyrinth for five mon-”

“Anya, _please_.”

“I should be paid.  That’s all I’m saying.”

Frowning deeply when Giles only narrowed his eyes at her, Anya mumbled a few words and the boulders vanished.  Everyone cringed.  As Faith understood it, glamour spells required a subject, something you wanted to make look like something else.  In this case, the subject was a bunch of crushed skeletons in Initiative uniforms.

Gruesome, but at least the whole thing provided more evidence that Adam hadn’t been here.

Again taking the lead, the slayers stepped gingerly over the bones and into the passageway with everyone else following behind.  However, it wasn’t long before they were all forced to halt again.  The passage came to a stop at a perfectly flat slab of concrete which ran from floor to ceiling. 

“Is this a glamour too?” Buffy asked over her shoulder.  Anya shook her head.  “Damn.”  She ran a finger along its surface.  “Know any good dynamite summoning spells?”

As Willow and Giles discussed what to do, Faith felt the stirrings of something familiar.  Instinctively, she placed a hand against the wall and got that shivery feeling up her back again.  After a moment, the Mayor’s red sigil appeared.  “B?”

This time, Buffy was buoyed by the sight instead of horrified.  “Okay.  You do your thing, and if Adam is waiting on the other side, the plan is: I knee him in the groin and you guys run.”

Faith grinned.  “Solid plan, B.”  She handed Buffy her axe and recited the password.  Again, there was that draining sensation, compounded by the unsettled faces of Giles, Willow, and Tara.  It was like getting caught stealing after you’d just promised to be good.  She didn’t want them seeing this.

Fortunately, even Willow kept her big mouth shut.  A gust of foul air rushed by when the door silently vanished, and for a second no one so much as breathed.   The hole opened up to an empty cell with an open glass door.  Pressing forward, they spilled out into the Initiative’s prison block, what Buffy called ‘HST Containment.’  Five cells down on the right was a metal door, but in the other direction the line of cells appeared to be endless.  The sickly yellow glow of emergency lighting lit the entire row.

“This is where they used to keep Spike and Oz,” Buffy said, her voice low.

Faith nodded.  “I don’t sense anything nearby.”  The word ‘nearby’ was important, because the second the invisible door went down, she began to sense something; something big, and very, very powerful.  It didn’t exactly help that there were bloodstains all over the walls and floor, yet no sign of any bodies.

“We can’t stay here.  It’s not defensible.”  Buffy turned right with Faith still at her side while everyone else crept slowly behind.  The metal door at the end of the hall was wide enough to drive a car through.  Above it, stenciled onto the wall, were the words ‘Restricted Area.’  “Red,” Buffy whispered, indicating the lights on the keypad.  “That’s usually bad.”

 _‘Locked.’_   Faith looked for hinges, but there weren’t any.  The door looked like it slid down from the top or the sides, but there was no place to get a grip.  “Fuckin’ futuristic shit,” she muttered.

Buffy pressed against it, testing the door’s strength.  It gave just a little.  “We can break through this,” she said.  “There’s only one problem.”

“We do it and everyone knows we’re here?”

“Yeah.”

There was nothing else for it.  “Okay.  So, once we do our Kool-Aid Man impression, where do we go?”

B’s lips quirked a bit.  “We find an empty room, someplace where you can bar the door and perform the spell.  Don’t go left though.”

Faith’s raised eyebrow asked the question.

“That hallway leads to the gathering area.  All those demons you’re sensing?  That’s where they are.”

“Lovely.”  Faith grimaced and looked over her shoulder.  Two slayers could probably plow through whatever demons might be waiting on the other side, as long as Adam wasn’t among them, but Team Magic was a different story.  “Okay.  We break this door down, you lead the way, the Scoobies follow, and I cover the rear.”

Buffy nodded, but looked a little unsure.  This was it.  Either they won, or they’d be dead in less than five minutes.

Buffy’s friends had all gathered around.  It was the time for inspiring speeches, affirmations of sisterhood, promises they’ll all make it out together… that sort of crap.  Faith had nothing, yet the desire to say something was overpowering, just in case this really was the end.  “Hey, B?” she asked softly.  “You remember that time you brought a banana on patrol and I stole it out of your coat pocket and ate it?”

Whatever Buffy had expected to hear, that was definitely not it.  “I, uh, yeah,” she replied equally quietly but smiling a little.

“Well, today I’m gonna make up for that.”

She couldn’t have looked more confused if she tried.  It was sort of ridiculously adorable.  “I don’t understand.”

Everyone’s eyes were on her, but Faith didn’t care.  She needed to get this out, even if she hated how unsteady her voice sounded.  “The way I see it, I’ve got like a thousand things to make up for, and in order from the mildly annoying stuff to the completely unforgiveable stuff, I think that one ranks at the very bottom.  Gotta start somewhere, right?”

“Faith...”

A hundred bad memories were probably playing through Buffy’s mind at that moment.  Try as they might, the past would never escape them.  _‘Apologize to me and I will beat you to death.’_   Faith kept her voice low, as if that alone would keep Buffy’s anger in check, “You have every right to hate me, B.”

Buffy only looked forward, not making eye contact.   When she spoke, her voice was only the smallest whisper, “I know.”  The words held no malice.  They were sad, almost regretful.

It was practically nothing, yet it was more than Faith felt she deserved.  It was only the tiniest amount of progress, yet it gave her hope. 

Giles glanced at his watch.  He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to.  They needed to get moving. 

Steeling herself, Faith stepped back until she and Buffy were the same distance from the door.  “On the count of three then?”

Shaken from her thoughts, Buffy nodded.  “You guys ready?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

Everyone murmured their assent.  Tara’s eyes darted to Faith’s and she smiled.  Faith smiled back.

Finally, Buffy met her gaze again, her expression confident.  “Ready?”

Faith grinned, “Let’s do it.”


	6. Act 1 - Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, it’s been a while. My writing’s been suffering for a long time due to real-life stuff, but I’m trying to push through it all. Hopefully, this longish chapter makes up for at least some of the wait?
> 
> Certain lines were lifted from the episodes "Primeval" and “Restless,” as well as the film One Million Years B.C. As always, this story is purely for fun, and no profit has been made by me ^^
> 
> Also, any and all Sumerian words in this chapter bear only a passing resemblance to the actual language *sweats*

_The Fire in Her Eyes_ by Imrryr

Act 1 – Chapter 6

…

“Enkidu opened his mouth, saying to Gilgamesh:

'Where you've set your mind begin the journey,

let your heart have no fear, keep your eyes on me!'”

\- _The Epic of Gilgamesh_

…

Sunnydale.  May 4th, 2000.

…

The door flew into the opposing wall with an ungodly crash, but when everyone charged out of the prison block, they were surprised to find nothing but a dark and empty hallway.  To their right lay a series of non-descript halls, and to the left, behind a single bloodstained door, was the Initiative's gathering area.  The chill Buffy felt in her bones only grew more pronounced.  She wondered if slayers had a natural flight instinct when sensing so many demons confined to one place.

A cavern full of dead minotaurs was beginning to look positively inviting by comparison.

Giles whispered some words under his breath and a blue wisp of light sailed over Buffy's shoulder, smacking into the far door.

"Repelling spell," he said proudly as the metal door locked securely into place behind an intricate blue seal.  "It should give us about -," both were suddenly split in two by a giant horn, filling the hall with a horrid screech that had Tara and Willow covering their ears.  "- zero seconds,” Giles finished, swallowing. 

Whatever was attached to that horn promptly pulled back and charged again, knocking the door completely off its hinges and bringing down some of the ceiling for good measure.

A scaly, reptilian face appeared through the dust, scarred and bleeding.   It peered at them with eight beady eyes and roared.  Hands and legs clawed at the wall on both sides, but whether they were trying to pull the beast back, or trying to break through for themselves, Buffy didn't know.

Anya fired several shots from her crossbow, but they bounced harmlessly off the creature's thick skin.  They'd need to get closer, but, yeah.   _Eww._

Screeching again, the beast struggled forward, only to succeed in wedging itself more tightly in the breech it had created.  ' _Oh, god_ ,' Buffy realized.   Those other limbs didn't belong to other demons, they were part of the _same_ demon.

Faith was standing right beside her, slowly mouthing the words, 'What.  The.  Fuck?'

"This way!" Willow yelled from behind them.

Despite the disgusted look she still wore, Faith squared her shoulders and leaned slightly forward while Buffy did the same.  The giant whatever-it-was had pushed itself about halfway through now, but the wall surrounding it was already beginning to crack as it huffed, and screamed, and struggled.

Just as they were both about to charge, Giles grabbed a hold of Faith's shirt collar.  "Come _on_ ," he growled, yanking her backwards in the direction of the rest of the gang.

“But –“

It was hard not to laugh.  Faith had the look of a child being ordered to come back inside and finish scrubbing the dishes.

“Bloody slayers,” Giles muttered as he pulled Faith down the hall.  “It’s like herding cats.”

Buffy swallowed as the wall continued to crack.  She’d faced down worse things than this, but nothing quite so hideous... well, with the possible exception of Balthazar.  ‘ _God, was that guy ugly_ ,’ she thought before shaking her head.  At least in terms of the smell, the two were about even.

“Just keep it distracted for five minutes,” Giles called out, already out of sight beyond the next corner.  “That’s all we need!”

Buffy grimaced.  She’d heard that line before.  “Five minutes,” she muttered aloud as the foul creature reared and finally broke through, sending tiny chunks of concrete skidding down the hall and past her feet.  “Piece of cake.”  She searched for a place to run.

* * *

“We’re really gonna just leave her out there by herself?” Faith protested as Giles slammed the door behind them, putting another one of those ineffectual locking spells on it for good measure.   She didn't get an answer.  The old man was too busy toppling over, and Faith barely caught him before he planted his face in the floor.  "Shit, G.  You okay?"

"Yes," he grunted, allowing her to help him to his feet again.  "I'm afraid I'm only a second-rate witch.  Casting so many spells in rapid succession is really quite beyond my abilities."

Willow and Tara already had half a circle of candles arranged on the floor, dimly illuminating what appeared to be the Initiative's cafeteria: a long, cavernous space fitted with stainless steel tables.  It bore an unfortunate resemblance to the one back in prison.

"She won't be on her own," Tara said, staring deeply into the flickering light before her while Willow finished setting and lighting the rest.  "You'll be with her."

Faith looked nervously back at the door.  She sensed demons - a lot of demons - and they were getting closer.

"I'm very glad you're here, Tara,” Giles was saying, wiping the sweat off his forehead.  He dropped his bag and began quickly removing a bizarre collection of ingredients: tarot cards, a bag of powder, and one mystical gourd.  “I'm just about worn out."

The two witches smiled; Tara looking embarrassed, and Willow looking proud.  There was another bang, the sound of a wall being smashed in if Faith was any judge, but it was coming from further away.  She could still sense movement, and that was a good sign.  It meant Buffy was likely still alive.  Faith shouldn't have been surprised.  If anyone could annoy an entire pack of demons, it was definitely B.

"Maybe you should call yourself a warlock," Faith offered, rapidly tapping her foot as she continued to stare intently at the door.  "Would make you _sound_ more powerful, at least."

"Warlock means oath-breaker," Tara replied.  "It's considered an insult among witches."

Faith glanced over her shoulder.  "Really?  Uh, forget I said anything."

“ _Faith_ ,” Giles said pointedly, beckoning her to sit next to him.  Everyone else had taken their places around the circle, with Anya remaining by the door, crossbow still in hand.  Faith dropped onto the cold concrete with a sigh.  The commotion from beyond the walls was growing more difficult to hear, but she could feel the floor rumbling beneath her.

“Faith, you must concentrate,” he continued, taking the slayer’s right hand while Tara took the left.

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, letting out a deep breath as she tried to fight the adrenaline coursing through her veins - never an easy task even at the best of times.  “Use the Force, right?”

“ _Faith_.”

“Sorry.”

"Now, do you rememb-"

“Oh, _Star Wars_!” Anya interrupted, appearing genuinely proud of herself.

Giles sighed.  “Do you remember the words we went over?”

Faith nodded.  Studying and her had never really seen eye to eye, but nothing was more motivational than a test where failure meant death and dissection, and not necessarily in that order.  It gave her that little extra kick.

“Then let us begin.”

The two witches nodded and Willow was the first to speak, turning over a card on which appeared the figure of a magician holding a baton high in the air.  “The power of the slayer and all who wield it -”

* * *

When the monster bolted for her, quicker than something so large had any right to be, Buffy quickly scratched any hope of fighting it head-on in that narrow hallway.  Instead, she darted back into the prison block.

The thing's hot breath was at her back as she ran as hard and fast as she could.  Fortunately, it was no smarter than it looked, and when Buffy suddenly darted right and leapt into one of the cells, it continued on, tried to turn, and crashed into a concrete dividing wall.  As it fell back, dazed and bleeding, demons began to flood the ward, blocking the way back.  They didn't pursue her, instead choosing to gather together and watch from the sidelines, cheering when the great demon reared back on its hind legs.

Buffy sidestepped its next charge, feeling oddly sorry when it crashed into yet another wall, burying itself in blocks of concrete.  When it pulled back, it only groaned at her, its breathing ragged.  Picking up a chunk of the wall, Buffy struck the creature once in the head before it finally slumped to the floor unconscious.  Her audience went silent.

Looking at the thing made her shudder.  Half of the demon's twitching limbs must have come from former Initiative soldiers and scientists.  Was this an experiment?  Was Adam was just doing whatever he wanted with their bodies?  Hopefully, they had died before -

She turned away, not liking where her thoughts where taking her.  Her audience hadn't moved, but Buffy's heart pounded all the harder for it.  A giant monster was one thing; an entire army of vampires and demons was another matter entirely.  She cursed herself for not wearing a watch.  Was it too much to hope that she'd already killed five minutes?

A ceiling panel fell to the floor behind her, echoing down the block.  Nowhere to run.  If she went out into the underground caverns, she'd only be putting her friend's lives in danger.  She needed to be a distraction.

Taking a deep breath, Buffy strode as calmly and confidently as she could back in the direction of her waiting crowd.   ' _Stall for time.  Stall for time.  Stall for time_.'

It was hard to keep a neutral expression.  Amongst the standard fare of vamps and demons were more of those hybrid creations, and unlike the beast she had just fought, these were no mere experiments.  Their eyes shone with intelligence; the result of just two days of Adam's hard work, and there were _dozens_ of them.  She gulped.  Things were not looking good.

But her eyes narrowed when the line of demons parted and one of them stepped under a faint overhead light.  This one she knew all too well, even though practically every inch of him was worse for wear than the last time they had met.  Shiny metal implants circled his neck and upper arms, and new grafts of miss-matched demonic skin marred much of his bare torso and face.  “Adam was hoping for a lot of new recruits today,” Forrest said, sneering.  “I suppose he’ll have to make do with you.”

Buffy crossed her arms.  “You’ve died twice already.  Isn’t it time to retire?”

His voice still had that odd mechanical resonance to it, as well as that everpresent tinge of disgust Buffy was already quite used to.  “Oh, I think we’ll be even on that score soon enough.”

He stretched out his hand, and a hidden bolt fired directly at her chest.   Buffy caught it easily, and something green spilled out from the tip and stained her shirt.  It smelled like the sedative they would use on Oz when he got out of control.  "So," she drawled.  "Adam gets the machinegun hand, and you get... _that_?"

Forest swore, raising his fists.  “I’d much rather kill you anyway.”

Even with his upgraded demon attachments, Forrest was out of his league.  He lunged at her and missed, and a kick to his back sent him flying into one of the cells.  Still, what he lacked in grace, he made up for in resilience.  He was on his feet again in an instant, throwing a punch that actually managed to connect with Buffy’s shoulder.

‘ _Okay_ ,’ she thought, wincing.  ‘ _Maybe he’s not out of his league_.’  A well-placed strike of her own had him clutching his head and staggering backwards, but again, Forrest took only a second to recover.  This was getting iffy.  The man was getting more Terminator-like with every resurrection.

“Adam wants you for the squad,” he growled, striking the air where Buffy’s head had been a second before.  “Or, to be more specific: he wants _parts_ of you for the squad.”

Buffy flipped backwards, landing solidly on her feet.  “First off: _eww_.  Second: I don’t do requests.”

“It’s not a request.” 

She caught the glint in his eye a second too late, and the next thing she saw was the arrowhead poking out of her chest.

Buffy fell to her hands and knees, the demons at her back cheering as she began to cough up blood.

* * *

Faith had never worked well in groups, but the lines she was reciting in time with the others came to her lips as easily as if she'd been speaking them all her life.

"We enjoin that we may inhabit the vessel, the hand... daughter of Sineya, first of the ones."

In the beginning they were all just empty words to her, but then it started in her chest; a warm energy spreading out from her center.   Slowly, inexorably, the power suffused every muscle and every vein, and it was like no other spell she'd experienced before. 

"We implore thee: admit us.  Bring us to the vessel!  Take us now!"

This warmth was no alien or demonic presence - it was a power from within.  It belonged to her, it sung to her, and there was more of it than she could’ve ever imagined.  An unseen hand began stroking her chin.  It whispered her name in a strong, yet sweet voice.  ‘ _You’ve lost your way, yet you have always understood_.’  Faith saw herself on the run from Kakistos, fighting vampires by night, and sleeping where she could by day.  Slaying the dark forces alone, looking after only herself, that was the way things were meant to be; the way the slayer had lived for ten-thousand generations.  But that was okay.  ‘ _You are stronger on your own,’_ the voice beckoned _, “you don’t_ need _them_.’

Her heart was pounding.  A year ago she would’ve believed that - even reveled in what the voice was saying - but now Faith wasn’t so sure.

Still, the power within her grew until she felt she might burst.  As the chanting continued, its’ thoughts became her thoughts.  Something kept her glued to the floor, otherwise she would’ve sprung from her seat and cried out to the world, ' _No more bars, no more chains_.'  If only she were free, she could do what must be done - what should’ve been done ages ago. 

It was increasingly difficult to know where she ended and the magic began.  Faith's thoughts were her own, yet not.  And now they carried an unaccustomed weight, like somehow she knew that the binds holding her down would break just as inevitably as a wall trying to hold back the raging sea.

"We are heart," they chanted together.

"We are mind."

"We are spirit."

"From the raging storm –“  The words echoed in her mind, and the air crackled as tingles ran up every hair on her body.  "We bring the power of the Primeval One!"

...

The shift took her by surprise, and with a suddenness that reminded her of swapping bodies; a feeling that became even more acute when she sensed the relative lightness of Buffy’s frame, felt the strength in her arms, and heard the familiar pitch of her voice as she coughed and writhed on the floor.

Then she felt a deep and very familiar pain in her chest.  Something jagged was sticking out of her abdomen.   Blood poured from her.  She was dying. 

But suddenly, Buffy opened her eyes, and a yellow light seemed to light up the dirty floor.  Immense power suffused the slayer’s body and Faith recognized that sensation too.  _Magic_.

Faith felt it all as Buffy pushed herself off the ground, heard her thoughts as she regarded her audience with a newfound air of dismissal, and felt the crackling of energy running through her.  Demons surrounded her on all sides, and Faith felt the arrowshaft as Buffy pulled it out and tossed it aside without flinching.  The wound closed up immediately.  Nothing hurt.  All she felt was power and light.

A pieced-together man spun on his heels as the other demons stepped back in fear.  Reflected in his eyes, Buffy could see her own, shining a bright yellow like fire. 

Any residual fear melted away, and Buffy was serene and supremely confident, like a goddess descending from heaven and into the world of mortals. 

‘ _Forrest,_ ’ she thought, and Faith’s mind was filled with images of a soldier turned demon-hybrid.   They'd fought before in this place.  He had died once.  He would die again.

The demons raised their weapons - crossbows, guns, and fists - but Buffy didn’t move.   They all eyed each other nervously until their exasperated leader gave the order to fire.  As they let loose a volley of bullets and arrows, Buffy raised her hand and the shots arced through the air, returning from whence they came and filling the creatures with holes.  In just seconds, a dozen demons lay dead on the floor.

‘ _Damn.  Nice one, B_ ,’ Faith thought.  Still, there were a lot of them left in the room, and Buffy didn’t waste any words.  In the back of her mind Faith could now hear Willow and Tara chanting the words to a spell.   “Uru,” Buffy said simply, and Faith instinctively understood the intention behind the strange word: a protecting fire.  Holding up a hand, she summoned a ball of light which hovered in the air and burned like the sun.  Gasping, Forrest shielded his eyes, but it was no use.  His flesh, and the flesh of his entire platoon began to sizzle, then peel, then catch fire.  Seemingly locked in place, they screamed in terror as Buffy's magical fire grew inexorably brighter until every demon in the prison block was blasted into a fine pile of ash.

In an instant the fire was gone and all was still.  Inexplicably, the formerly dank prison block remained lit with a light that reminded Faith of a warm spring day, but where it was coming from she had no idea.

Buffy stepped confidently back into the hallway on her way to the gathering area, the light following her all the while.  A million images flashed through their shared mind as she walked: people and places Faith had never seen before, strangers in dark robes chasing after her, an entire nation bowing before her feet, lands she had never visited but yet felt so very familiar.  It was like one of her slayer dreams on some serious drugs; visions so real Faith could feel the paving stones beneath her feet, taste the sulfur in the air, and hear the crashing of waves on a distant shore.

There were other scenes floating around in there too; glimpses of Buffy through the eyes of Willow and Giles.  A distant night in the Summers' house with a young Buffy in tears and Willow attempting to comfort her, Giles doing the same a year later in the dark high-school library.  Buffy's eyes were glassy then, her posture slumped.  She wasn’t crying, but looked like she had been.  Faith didn’t need to hear her speak to know whose name was on her lips.

It took a lot of effort to tear her concentration away.

And in that maze of visions, Tara was also there.   She didn't really know anyone but Willow, but her intent was the same as the others: protect Buffy at all costs.  Sure, Buffy was Willow’s best friend, but it was clear that there was more to it than that.  Tara cared because she was Tara.

Faith allowed herself to think those same thoughts.  It was hard to simply push aside a year’s worth of resentment, of lies, and betrayals, but this was an opportunity to show Buffy that she really had changed, that she wasn't the same person she had been a year ago, or even a few months ago.

Her thoughts took her to Christmas Eve, and Faith remembered the way her heart raced after knocking on the woman’s door.  ‘ _Stay cool, don’t let her know how excited you are._ ’  That had been tough, especially after Buffy smiled so warmly at her.

Then there were all the nights when it had just been the two of them slaying.  It had felt so right... like this was the way it was always meant to be; her and Buffy together under the moon, kicking demon ass and having fun together.

It brought back feelings she swore never to allow herself to indulge in again.  In the end, they had always caused her to lash out, to end up more miserable than when she started, but this was for Buffy.  Faith wanted her to survive and to win.  Giles brought the knowledge, Tara and Willow were bringing the heart and the magic… and Faith, well, Faith was only bringing the things Buffy already had; the strength, the speed, the awareness of the slayer.  Still, she concentrated; scanning the way forward, building on Buffy's strengths, looking out for her safety as she should of done long ago.

The debris blocking the door cleared with a mere wave of Buffy’s hand, and that ever present sense of impending doom only grew stronger.  There were _a lot_ of demons in here.  Hundreds of them.  Dimly, she was aware that on any normal day such a sensation would have sent her running for this hills.

Now, such a thing felt like the fears of a child.  For too long, Adam had been allowed to reign in this pitiful place, his rise brought about by fools who did not understand what they were doing.  Today, those who died would finally receive satisfaction.  As she strode in, all was bathed in light, making that grizzly place feel warmer and safer than it had any right to be.

The main hall was little more than a large concrete square under a high ceiling.   Wrecked vehicles were parked haphazardly in her way, and open crates lay toppled over in every direction.  Everywhere hung the stench of decay, and the sight of blood, but this too faded as she passed.

Demons were waiting by the facility’s metal garage doors, and they were truly something out a nightmare.  Some were pieced together as Forrest had been, but without the same amount of care and attention.  Others were easily triple Buffy's size, but when she stepped around the group of parked trucks, the demons flinched at the sight of her.  They were scared - no - they were _terrified_.

And before this giant army was a dais that had once been used to give the officer in charge a clear view of the Initiative's surgery and dissection tables.

That was where the awful smell had been coming from, but Buffy paid it no heed.

At the top of the steps stood a giant mass of human and demon parts with neck muscles that would’ve made Henry Rollins jealous.  So, this was Adam.  Large pieces of metal were grafted to his torso and the left side of his face, but it was clear that, much like Forrest, he was also part demon.  The tension in the hall was obvious, but he continued busily tapping away at some sort of computer interface.  Was he oblivious, or unconcerned?

Faith relived every blow Buffy had suffered as if it were her own.  She felt her terror, and her despair when their plans had come crashing down.  She saw the dead bodies littering the ground as they’d escaped, knowing she’d live to see another day when so many others wouldn’t, but now Buffy was just standing there, regarding Adam as one might regard a mosquito.

That ancient energy flowing through their shared body only continued to grow.  It comforted her, but it called to Buffy, demanding the death of every abomination in this room, demanding vengeance for the fallen, and Faith truly knew it for what is was: the power of the First Slayer.  The Primeval One.

Part of her was jealous.  Buffy had always been first, had always been better, had always been more worthy to carry the slayer's power, but those dark thoughts receded as quickly as they came.  Buffy was beautiful, perfect… _untouchable_.

Adam finally lifted his eyes from his console.  Despite the strange sight, his expression didn't betray the fear the others' had.  He seemed a little surprised, but also supremely confident.  “Ah, the slay-“

Buffy tilted her head and Adam’s hand shot to his throat, clutching it as he struggled to breathe.    Her golden hair waved in a tempest that seemed to come from everywhere at once.  When she spoke, her voice was ethereal - the voice of a power - like nature itself was speaking through her, “We grow tired of your words.”

In jerking movements, Adam knelt to the ground, clearly not of his own volition.  Faith saw the memory: Riley, controlled by the chip in his chest, unable to move.  This is what Adam had done to him.  “We are the heart,” Buffy said in that ancient language, like she was reciting a prayer.  “We are the mind.  We are the spirit.  From the raging storm, we bring the power of the Primeval One.”

Adam’s eyes grew wide, and his free arm transformed into a machinegun.  He fired, but Buffy only raised a hand in response.  “Boil the air,” she ordered, and Faith could distinctly hear Giles’ voice mixed in her own.  The bullets never reached their target, instead hitting a magical barrier and dissolving out of existence.  _‘So fucking wicked,’_ Faith thought, and Buffy actually smiled.

Faith kept her senses open.  Every demon was an open book to her now.  Their strengths, their weaknesses, even the blood pumping through their veins; she saw it all.  And that’s when she felt it; three winged demons descending on her from the ceiling.

_‘Buffy!’_ Faith thought.  _‘Behind you.’_

She turned and looked up at the advancing dragon-like creatures.  With an amused expression, she snapped her fingers and her attackers transformed into a flock of white doves.  Confused, they fluttered above her head for a moment before scattering back to the rafters.

Completely untouchable.

A motley assortment of demons had lined up on Adam's left, finally seeming to get their act together.  They growled and hissed and shook an impressive assortment of weapons, but Buffy remained unmoved.  It was obvious what should be done.  With another command and a wave of her hand, Adam's machinegun hand transformed again.  He turned and fired a salvo of rockets into his own men. 

Over their ear-piercing screams, Buffy impassively watched the ensuing massacre.  Within seconds, half of Adam's army lay in ruins at his feet.  The rest scattered like insects under a light, either bolting for the elevator shaft or tearing at the doors trying to get out.  None dared approach her, nor did a single demon try making a break for the prison ward.   Buffy had every last one of them in an utter frenzy; all five feet, four inches of her.

The mound of mangled bodies, still moving limbs, and pools of multi-colored blood lying on the floor easily made the shortlist of the foulest things Faith had ever seen in her life.  Buffy seemed to take notice of this, and the pile transformed into a patch of grass and blue flowers.  This growth began to spread across the floor, climbing over crates and up the walls until all the hall was a verdant garden.

That ever present light shone all the brighter, as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds, leaving the running demons looking for cover but finding none.  Like specters; every last creature - vampire and demon – dissolved into dust, leaving only their battered leader, his blistered skin half-charred a reddish-brown and his metal implants melted and twisted in painful looking ways.  The room had gone deathly quiet, and all that could be heard now were Adam's labored breaths.  Buffy advanced, summoning the First Slayer’s strength to kick him in the stomach, before grabbing one of his enormous upper arms and sending him flying over the ledge and into the dissection chamber.

She needn’t hurry after him.  Sweat ran down his charred face as he gasped with the simple effort of picking himself off the floor.  “How… can you…?”

“You could never hope to grasp the source of our power,” Buffy intoned as she squeezed his neck and pulled him back to his feet.  Her right hand pushed easily through his chest, with Adam swatting ineffectually at her all the while.  “But yours is right here.”  With that, she pulled out his uranium core and tossed his lifeless body onto the nearest table.

…

“What are you doing up?”

Faith blinked awake to find herself in darkness.  She flexed her fingers, still grasped in her companion's hands - no sense of unearthly power, no visions of far-flung times, no one else’s thoughts running through her head.  It wasn’t like waking from a dream at all.  It was like she had been a force of nature with power over all the world for a few glorious minutes, but now she was just plain old Faith again.

Kind of a letdown, to say the least.

Anya was looking down on her, appearing surprisingly bored for someone who had just survived a near encounter with an apocalypse.  In fact, strangely, the other people in the circle hadn’t seemed to have gotten the memo on that.  Faith pried Tara and Giles’ fingers from her own and shook them both but they remained in their weird magical trance, all breathing hard and sweaty-like.  Freaky.  When she stood up, her limbs felt flush with residual energy, every muscle tingling like the day she’d been called.   “Adam’s dead.  It’s over.”

Anya sighed.  “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Huh?”

She twirled a crossbow bolt expertly in her hand.  Evidently, she’d been practicing.  “The enjoining spell is cursed.  Every time someone casts it, something goes horribly wrong.”

“ _Huh_ ," Faith repeated, eyes narrowing.  "And you didn’t mention this earlier, because?”

Anya rolled her eyes.  “Giles and Willow are all like, ‘Oh, that’s just an old superstition.  Let’s ignore the warnings of the socially awkward ex-vengeance demon.  It’s not like she has a thousand years of experience with magic or anything.’”

Faith coughed.  The subject was clearly a touchy one.  “I’ll, uh, just go see if B is okay.”  The spell locking the door had vanished, and after stepping into the hallway and finding it empty, she looked back on the rest of the Scoobies still doing their weird shaking routine in the circle.   “Keep an eye on them, will you?”

Anya sighed again.

…

Faith bolted into the main hall, dashing around twisted metal, trees, and a dust strewn floor to find Buffy more or less where they'd left her, standing over Adam’s overdone corpse, amidst a field of grass and flowers.  There was a gaping hole in the demon’s chest, and his uranium core was nowhere to be seen, but hey, he was dead, and that was more than enough for Faith.

It took a moment for her to realize that the dissection area was actually beneath them now, buried under several feet of dirt.  She hoped the rest of this place would soon join it.

Moving to touch the woman’s shoulder, Faith immediately thought better of it.  “B?" she asked, stepping carefully around her until they were face to face.  Buffy’s still glowing eyes were focused somewhere else; probably a million miles away, or a million years in the past for all she knew.   Faith settled for waving a hand in front of her.  "Uh, B?  You in there?”

Buffy's magically glowing eyes suddenly blinked, which was at least vaguely reassuring, but Faith nearly had a heart attack when a slender hand reached out and brushed her cheek, before gently running through her hair.  Dumbstruck, her mouth fell open.  Only in Faith’s wildest dreams did Buffy ever look at and touch her like that.

A warm magical energy left tingles wherever they touched, leaving Faith short of breath, and her heart pounding in her chest.

“Inanna,” B said softly.  It sounded like it might be a name, or maybe a greeting.  Faith blinked.  She didn’t understand.

Buffy only smiled.  Her expression was soft and gentle, like the light breeze still inexplicably flowing through her golden hair, and like her glowing eyes, still shining with affection.  This wasn’t the Buffy she knew.  When the woman spoke, her voice still held that ethereal quality, but though Faith recognized the language, she found she could no longer understand a single word of it.  “Kidari.  Dari agal, dari kigmeyen.” 

It was all Greek to her, but the way she _said_ it… Faith would’ve been happy to have Buffy speak to her like that for the rest of her life.

That hand rested softly of her shoulder now, briefly playing with the ends of Faith’s hair, before tracing its way down her chest and grasping the pendant hanging around her neck.  As though it were made of chalk, Buffy gently crushed it in her hand until it turned to dust just as easily as Adam’s army had.  Always, her eyes were locked on Faith’s.  “He enzu, me endeyen lusir.”  Faith could only stare back at her, mouth wordlessly opening and closing like a total dork, before the light in Buffy’s eyes suddenly went out.

When she fainted, Faith didn’t even think twice, easily catching her before she hit the ground.  There was no shock, and blue light no longer shone from Buffy’s necklace.  In that same instant, the light from overhead went out, leaving the two in near darkness.

“B, you okay?”  The woman remained lifeless in her arms for what felt like an eternity.  Remembering Anya’s warning about the spell, Faith tried shaking her a little, but was relieved to see she was still breathing.  Finally, when Faith was just about to pick the woman up and carry her back to Giles, the slayer’s eyes blinked slowly open.  “ _Buffy_?”

Her breathy voice still had that sense of wonder in it, “That was…”

Faith found herself smiling.  “Yeah, it definitely was.”  It was a million different things at once.

Seeming to finally realize where she was, Buffy quickly pulled away.  “What happened to your –,“ she gestured at the broken chain dangling around Faith's neck.

“You don’t remember?” Faith asked, her expression falling.  “You said something in… uh, whatever that language was, then you made it go poof in your hands.”

Buffy's brow furrowed.  “I remember…”  She rubbed her temple, “Ugh, my head hurts.”

Faith tried not to let her frustration show, but anything else Buffy might've said was interrupted when the giant bay doors drew noisily open.  In seconds, an army of soldiers - the less scary, human kind - flooded in.  Both slayers tensed, but the men and women hardly seemed to notice them as they fanned out to secure the area.

They both let out a long sigh.

A familiar face with her long hair in a ponytail brushed purposefully by them, surprisingly unaffected by the dense foliage she had to step through to do it.  The soldier grinned at Faith, leaning in and adding, “I knew you weren’t any damned secretary,” before dashing off.  Despite her lingering disappointment, Faith chuckled, and surprisingly Buffy did too.

…

The gang had done their job too well.  She still felt totally amped, but now there weren’t any more demons for Faith to stab or preform crazy forbidden magics on.

It was a shame, really.

Buffy and Willow were on their way to the hospital to tell Riley the good news, leaving Faith with little choice but to catch a ride in the back of an army truck with Giles and Tara.  She had no idea where Anya had run off to.  From what she'd heard, the army commander had taken her request for monetary compensation for helping to stop Adam rather poorly.

It would’ve be a good time to hit the Bronze if it wasn’t still mid-afternoon, and the city hadn’t been on lockdown, _and_ the power wasn’t still out.  Besides, Giles would’ve probably taken a dim view on the idea.  Partially reformed or not, Faith was kind of supposed to be in prison right now.

So she sat gloomily on a bench at the rear of the truck as it rumbled slowly past army checkpoints on its way through town.  Already, Sunnydale's citizens were milling about, as oblivious as ever to their recent brush with annihilation.

She didn’t hear Giles calling her name until he was practically yelling it.

“Hmm?” she mumbled, eyes darting to his.

He seemed mildly concerned for some reason.  “Are you all right?”

Shrugging, her attention returned to the road behind them.

“What happened to your necklace?” Tara asked.

Faith looked down at her chest; the chain had fallen off at some point.  Only now did it occur to her that she was free.  She could jump off this truck and no one would ever catch her.

The vehicle shook and squealed as it went over a bump, but Faith only held onto the bench more tightly.  “Buffy, uh, sorta went like this," she said, making a grabbing motion with her free hand, "and then it went poof."

Giles' eyes widened.   Yeah, she sucked at explaining things, but it was good to know he found it all at least half as weird as she did.  "I woke up before you guys, and she was still all," she paused, "you know, magic-y."

"I don't remember that.  Do you?" he asked Tara.

The witch shook her head.

Faith shrugged again.   Their reactions didn’t exactly fill her with confidence.  "She also said some stuff I didn’t understand, in whatever-that-shit was we were speaking during the ritual."

" _Sumerian_."

"Yeah, whatever," she added with the faintest of smiles at his irritated look.  She’d forgotten how fun it could be to rile the old man up once in a while.

"Do you recall her exact words?"

‘ _He enzu, me endeyen lusir_.’  It was practically etched in her mind.  She couldn’t remember the stuff she’d said earlier though.  Had she known there'd be a quiz later, Faith would've brought a pen and asked B to jot it all down.  Still, she repeated the words as best she could, but sure that the blank look Giles was giving her had something to do with her horribly butchering the pronunciation, she added, “Or, you know, something like that.  And then, like I said, _poof_ … no more magical leash.”

The watcher blinked.  "Interesting…”

Now her eyes were pinned to his.  “Come on, G.  _Spill_.”

“Well,” he began, coughing nervously and looking away.  “A rough translation would be, ‘There is no need.  We are already bound together.’”

Faith felt her throat go dry.  “And what’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“It may have something to do with your slayer bond,” he suggested.  “You two _are_ bound together in that respect.”

Her answering nod was dubious to say the least.  She’d only been wearing the damn necklace because Buffy _didn’t_ trust her.  The slayer bond clearly meant nothing as far as trust was concerned.  Their entire relationship was a testament to that fact.

Tara said nothing, staring at the floor in deep concentration.  "B said she didn't remember," Faith added with a sigh.  Maybe the spell really had fucked with her memory, or maybe Buffy was in denial, or maybe Faith’s life had just been a big shit-sandwich up to that point anyway so why wouldn’t Buffy forget the single most powerful moment they’d ever shared.

Faith crossed her arms and grumbled to herself.  She shouldn’t have expected Buffy to remember, that was just how things worked in her life, but when she thought about sharing her consciousness with everyone...  Her brow furrowed in thought.  It was true, those memories were already getting fuzzy.  In fact, everything was fuzzy until she awoke from the spell and went running after Buffy.  If she lived for a thousand years, she’d never forget the way Buffy had looked at her then.  _That_ she remembered perfectly.  She always would.

Fucking magic.

“ _Faith_."

The name hung heavily in the air until she finally met Giles' eyes again.  He smiled as if reading her mind, and nodded at the open flap at the rear of the truck.  They were rolling past City Hall now, and Sunnydale residents and soldiers were staring back at them, looking a little like cows in a field eyeing a passing car.

“I know it doesn’t seem like much, but do you see all those people out there?  They have a chance to go home tonight and see their friends and families because of what you did today.  You should think about that.”

She looked away.  It was so easy to fuck up - people wait with bated breath to see you fail at shit - but doing the right thing, that was something you could spend your entire life doing and no one might ever notice.   Only a handful of people would ever have any idea what had just happened under the college campus today.  As for the rest?  Faith would remain the cleavage-y slut-bomb they all thought she was when she first rolled into town.

_Fuck_.  Forget cigs, she needed a drink.

“Every day you’re alive is an opportunity, Faith.  Treat it that way.”

Faith shook her head, unable to look at anything but her hands.  If Giles could’ve seen the look in Xander’s eyes when these hands were wrapped around his neck, would he still be saying that shit?  There had to be a line somewhere – a point where you just gave up on a person because what they had done was just too horrible to forgive.  Surely Faith had already crossed that line by a mile.

She tried to smile anyway.  “Thanks, G.”

* * *

“And you’re sure you’re okay?” she asked into the receiver.

It was so weird to hear Faith’s voice speaking back to her with Xander’s intonation and vocabulary, “Yeah, it’s been a real bowl of laughs around here.  This one girl got stabbed by her cellmate the night I got magic’d into my cell.  Apparently, they were both dating this other girl, Cara."  There was a brief pause before he whispered into the receiver, "I think she’s just using them both, if you ask me.”

“Xander?”

“Sorry.”

Buffy giggled for a moment, but quickly felt immensely guilty about it.  Here she was in her nice comfortable house – well, her mom’s nice comfortable house - while Xander was languishing in prison.  The enjoining spell had her so wound up, she felt like she could take on Adam’s legions all over again, single-handedly this time, but Giles had absolutely insisted on no more magic until tomorrow.  Something about blah blah blah, magical energies or something - she hadn't really been paying attention.  So, unfortunately Xander had to wait one more day.  “But everyone’s been leaving you alone?”

“Yeah, for the most part," her friend replied.  "I just tried to look, well, like Faith on a bad day, you know?  All moody and surly, and everyone stayed away for some reason.”

“Well, um, that’s good.”  Even sans slayer powers, Faith looked like she could throw someone across a room when she was wearing her angry face, so that checked out.  And honestly, it was a good thing Xander _was_ in disguise.  Buffy doubted he could look even remotely threatening while wearing his normal Xander face.  "Wait," she added after a moment’s thought.  " _Stayed_ away?  Did something happen?"

Xander was quick to assuage her fears.  “Oh, no, nothing bad.  The guards took me out of my cell a couple of hours ago and stuck me in a room.  Then some guy in a doctor's coat showed up, took my pulse, and said I should be quarantined for the next two days.  Then he _winked_ at me.  Now I’m in this cell in the hospital wing.  There’s a curtain, and a TV, and everything!”

Buffy smiled.  One of Angel’s associates must’ve been responsible for that.  Maybe Giles had asked him?  "Why didn't you mention that first?"

He gave an awkward cough.  "Well, I was enjoying the whole 'I feel really sorry for Xander and what I've be putting him through lately' thing you had going on.  Gotta savor it while it lasts, you know?"

She was smiling broadly now.  "Well, I _am_ really sorry.  I hope I mentioned that."

"You did," he said with a chuckle.

“So, you’ll really be okay until tomorrow?”

“I think so, as long as the food doesn’t kill me first.”

She sighed.  There was item number eight-thousand and two for the ‘Things Buffy Should Feel Incredibly Guilty About’ list.  “When this is all over, I’ll take you out for pizza as often as you want.”

“Throw in a few rounds of miniature golf and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

…

Willow and Tara were waiting in the living room, sitting on the couch together, but at a discreet distance.   Buffy had no idea how her mom would take the idea of the two of them being _together_ together.  Probably better than she took finding out her daughter was the chosen one, to be honest, but still, she’d leave it up to Willow and Tara to decide if and when they wanted to drop that bit of news.

“What did you tell her to get?” Willow asked as Buffy dropped into the overstuffed chair.

“Something appropriate for all of us.”

Her eyes widened considerably.  “You’re going to trust _Anya_ with that much responsibility?”

Buffy grimaced.  It did sound kind of stupid in retrospect, but she hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly at the time, or all day, to tell the truth.  Sharing a body with the essence of the First Slayer could do that to a person.  “I… just wanted her to feel like part of the group,” she offered meekly.

Willow frowned and shared a look with Tara, finally nodding in some kind of silent witchy understanding.  “Or maybe the enjoining spell destroyed your ability to make rational decisions?” she added, smiling.

As the three women laughed, it suddenly struck Buffy that things were finally back to normal… or normal for her at least.  Here they were, sharing a night together watching movies, just like their high-school days, only minus Xander and plus Tara, of course.  Faintly, she shook her head.  High-school was definitely _not_ something she should be longing to return to.  Almost everything had changed since those days, and she’d learned a lot about her friends, and herself.  "Can I ask, what was it like being inside my head?"

Willow tilted her head at the question and thought it over for a moment.  "It was _intense_.”  The two witches shared another long look, like the fact that it was 'intense' was some kind of ancient spiritual truth.  "I bet it was even more so for you.”

Buffy wondered about that.  “I could sense every one of you.  It was… amazing.”  The word felt grossly inadequate.  For Buffy, slaying had always been a lonely calling.  Nothing more effectively nurtured one’s feelings of isolation than spending every night stalking through cemeteries by yourself.  But this way of fighting, sharing the thoughts of sensations of so many others - all driven towards a common goal – that was a profound experience; it was something she hoped she’d never forget, something she hoped she could experience again one day.

Never in her life had she felt more surrounded by friends.  It was like she truly could accomplish anything. 

She’d sensed their every thought, and unbelievably there had no lingering resentment from how she had treated them the past few months.  She had truly been forgiven.  All she felt was love… from _everyone_.  “Faith was there too,” she added quietly, noting with discomfort the way the whole house seemed to go silent the instant she said the name.

Both witches gave her a look like they desperately wanted her to go on and Buffy narrowed her eyes at them suspiciously.  Even in the dimly lit room, her slayer sight didn’t miss the subtle blush on Tara’s cheeks.

Anya chose that moment to open the door.

“Ah, and how went the search?” Giles asked, returning from the kitchen with a bowl in popcorn in hand.

“Perfectly well,” she replied, dropping several plastic bags of piping hot Chinese food onto the coffee table.  “I didn’t even need to break into the video store, it was open and everything!”

“Oh, excellent,” Giles said, holding his tongue admirably.  Anya handed him a brown paper bag.  “Let’s see.”  As he went through the collection, the slight frown he tended to wear in Anya’s proximity became more and more pronounced.  “Well, I can see I’m in for a long evening.”  He quickly passed the bag to Buffy.

Buffy pulled out the first movie to hand.  A goofy looking vampire in a too-tight shirt loomed over a woman with prominently displayed breasts.  “ _Vampire_ _Cop_ ,” she read out loud, her voice wavering when she got to the tag line, “He takes a bite out of crime.”  Her expression went through about half a dozen emotions, none of which were very complementary.  “This sounds,” she looked up to find Anya staring at her expectantly, “interesting?”

Thankfully, Anya actually smiled and nodded.  Apparently, her few months at Sunnydale High hadn’t taught her that ‘interesting’ usually meant ‘bad.’

She looked down again at the cover and groaned silently.  Was there such a thing as Z-grade cinema?  “Why?"  It was a long awkward moment before she realized that she should probably add something to that statement.  "Why did you rent _this_ , exactly?"

“You told me to get something for everyone.”

"Uh huh.  And this is for…?"

" _You_ , of course."

She frowned.  She didn’t even really like vampire movies to be honest, even the supposedly good ones.  They were either horribly unrealistic, or they reminded her too much of Angel, or both.  "Huh."

"You like vampires, or at least, you slept with one, and you're sort of like a cop."

Buffy shut her eyes.  Somewhere in her four years under Giles’ training, he'd probably taught her loads of techniques to keep herself calm during stressful situations.  Unfortunately, none of those techniques were coming to mind just now, so she went with her usual coping mechanism: avoidance.  Perhaps she didn’t quite manage pleased, but hopefully her expression at least came off as neutral.  "So,” she drawled, “what did you get for Tara and Willow?"

The two witches looked horribly betrayed by the question.  Anya took the bag and, after some fishing around, pulled out another movie and handed it to Buffy.

A woman with blood running down her neck lay in the embrace of a female vampire.  And there were those prominently displayed breasts again.  She was detecting a theme.  “ _Witchcraft X_.”  It looked sort of, well, _gay_ , she supposed, but it was that gross kind of gay where you knew that every part of the production had been handled by greasy straight guys. 

Feeling strangely dirty, Buffy passed it to Willow, who made a decidedly displeased noise as she read the back cover.  “You couldn’t have gotten _Hocus Pocus_ or something?” she asked.

“I hesitate to ask what movie you thought most appropriate for me,” Giles said.

Anya pointed to the box in Willow’s hand and he actually rolled his eyes.  “It takes place in London,” she added.

Willow pointed to the image of Big Ben on the back of the box; it was partially obscured by a woman’s spandexed behind.  Buffy didn't think it would be possible for anyone to appear less pleased than Willow, but she knew that beneath his stoic Britishness, Giles was screaming internally.  All that came out was a short, “I… see.”

Faith poked her head around the corner, wearing one of Buffy’s oversized night shirts, and her hair damp from the shower.  “Hey.  Do I smell food?”

It was a rare moment these days when Faith’s entrance could make a situation _less_ awkward, but of course Anya had super awkward-making powers which could not be contained.  She nodded, before quickly gathering up the plastic bags and hiding them behind her back.  "You can have some, provided you promise never to sleep with my Xander again.”

Faith cringed along with everyone else, but she rolled with it.  “I’d be a fool not to take that deal.”  After being granted permission to rifle through the various boxes, she piled up a tall mound of beef, chicken, and rice on a plate, and then quietly made her excuses.

“Wait!” Buffy called out.  “Faith, you can stay… and, um, watch a movie with us.”

The wide-eyed look of terror on the woman’s face would’ve been pretty funny under normal circumstances, but Buffy was too busy girding herself for Willow’s reaction.

She was in no way prepared when Willow simply nodded, and made space between Tara and herself on the couch.

Tara smiled knowingly as Faith stood there in shock for a moment before awkwardly trying to make herself comfortable next to the woman she’d held a knife to last year.  At least it was a very large couch.  Willow had already turned her attention to dinner.

A moment later, her mom entered from the kitchen.  Buffy stared sharply at Anya, who as always appeared completely oblivious, and said a silent prayer that the women would not mention sex in her mother’s presence, or anything at all for that matter. 

“You’re all still up?” Joyce asked.  “I thought you guys would be exhausted.”

“Still feel a bit too wired,” Giles replied, evidently content with his bowl of popcorn as a substitute for dinner.

Willow nodded in agreement as she stirred her carton of rice with a fork, doing a remarkable job of looking like sitting next to Faith wasn’t bothering her in the slightest.  “That spell, it was powerful.”

Tara nodded as well, hiding behind her hair again, while Faith stuffed her face.  She ate just as ravenously as ever, perhaps even more so.  At least her mom seemed amused by it.

“I don’t think I _could_ sleep,” Buffy added as she filled a plate of her own.

After Joyce bid them a good evening and went upstairs, Anya left to use the bathroom, and everyone let out a collective, but quiet, sigh.

Buffy considered running up to her old room.  Most of her childhood VHS tapes were probably still up there in boxes, and let’s be honest, _The Goonies_ was Oscar-worthy compared to anything Anya had brought with her.  But no.  ‘ _Treat Anya like part of the gang_.’  She was really going to need to get that tattooed on her hand or something.

“What’s up?” Faith asked, looking at her curiously.  Though with a mouthful of food it sounded more like, ‘Mwuts zuf?’

“Anya rented some,” she struggled for the right word, “ _unique_ movies.”

Tara passed the bag to her.

“Huh,” Faith said after about thirty seconds.  Whatever else she was about to add died on her lips when Anya returned.  Instead, she simply shrugged.  “Pull one at random?”

Tara and Willow nodded, while Anya looked curious and Giles looked as though he was about to meet the executioner’s axe.

It came as no surprise when Faith pulled out another movie that looked like it wasn’t going to win any awards. 

She cleared her throat.  “Discover a world where the only law was _lust_ ,” Faith read aloud, grinning on the final word.  She passed the movie to Willow, who passed it on to Buffy without even looking at it.

“Right,” she drawled, studying the cover, which consisted solely of a shot of Raquel Welch in a furry bikini.  _One Million Years B.C_.  Judging by the stills on the back, the story involved cavemen fighting claymation dinosaurs.  Clearly, they weren’t going for historical accuracy.  She flipped the tape around again.  Plus, she doubted they had push-up bras one-million years ago.  “This is for Xander, isn’t it?”

Anya nodded.  “I have noticed that Xander enjoys looking at women in bikinis.”  It was a testament to her coping skills that Buffy didn’t even flinch that time.  She could easily think of one reason why Xander would want to see this; well, two reasons, if you wanted to be technical about it.

Judging by her gritted teeth, it looked as though the act of simply holding her tongue was taking a heroic amount of effort for Faith.  Buffy knew the feeling.  “Well, uh, if you were saving this for _Xander_ …”

Faith was busy going through the rest of the bag’s contents.  There were more tapes in there, and Buffy hoped to God that whatever bizarre back-alley video store Anya had gone to didn’t have a pornography section. 

“Uh, I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had enough vampires and witches for one day.”  Faith looked up in horror and added a hasty, “No offense.”

Giles shook his head and smiled.

When Faith finished her search, she met Buffy’s eyes and ever so subtly shook her head.  Sadly, Buffy was in fact holding the best movie Anya had brought.  “It’s got dinosaurs in it,” she offered.  _‘But Jurassic Park it ain’t,’_ Faith was saying with her eyes. 

_The Land Before Time_ was probably still up in her room too, now that Buffy thought about it, but she might not make it through the death of Littlefoot’s mom without crying, so, yeah, _damn_.  There was nothing else for it.  Well, she told herself, perhaps it would be better than it looked, not that that would be a particularly difficult feat.  And admittedly, if Xander _were_ here, he probably would’ve rented _Full Metal Jacket_ again, or something equally inappropriate for an apocalypse-averting celebration.  Steeling herself, she relented, pushing herself off the chair.

Pleased, Anya made a comfortable chair on the floor out of pillows while everyone else settled into their seats.

Under the glow of the TV screen, Buffy munched on a fortune cookie as the picture began.  The opening was weird, in that sort of way that a lot of old movies from before she was born were weird; all weird lights, weird music, and weirder sound effects.  It reminded her of seeing _2001_ in film class, or at least, the parts she vaguely remembered between falling in and out of consciousness.

Smoke rolled across the screen, volcanoes exploded to life, and storm clouds opened up.

In the back of her mind, Buffy had a vision of the wind rushing through her hair, the rain running down her skin, and world constantly changing around her.  Somehow, it felt like home.

It awoke something in the depths of her memory, something primal, not unlike what she’d experienced during the ritual.  The spell had brought with it so many sights, sounds, and smells that felt like her own memories, but couldn’t possibly have been, always flittering by on the periphery of her mind.  A waking slayer dream.

Normally, after a dream like that she’d mention what she’d seen to Giles, on the off chance that the dream had been prophetic somehow, but she tended to get distracted about thirty seconds into his string of follow up questions.

Her brow furrowed as she thought about this, slumping against the arm of the chair.  There was so much to being a slayer that she hadn’t really made an effort to understand; so much history, so many past slayers who had witnessed so much.  If she tried to learn about them, wouldn’t that make her a better one?  If she were stronger, more skilled, more intelligent, she could better protect her friends and family.  Maybe she’d ask Giles about that tomorrow.  He’d likely faint right on the spot; Buffy _wanted_ to train _and_ study?  It brought a grimace to her lips.  Or worse, he’d break out into an impromptu lecture on slayer history right then and there. 

Okay, maybe she’d wait until _after_ finals.

Buffy found herself drifting off to the narrator’s words.  “A young world, a world early in the morning of time.  A hard, unfriendly world -”  She imagined herself on top of a mountain, overlooking a coastline far below.  The stars had come out, and she could sense not only demons lurking in the nearby caves, but also the birds in the sky, the predators in the bush, even a small camp of people hidden far beneath the canopy.  It struck her as a strange thought, sensing humans like she could sense vampires.  Maybe it was her brain’s way of telling her she needed to study for her anthropology final.

“Creatures who sit and wait.  Creatures who must kill to live.”

Shivering under her blanket, Buffy felt an inexplicable chill at her back.  As she groggily wrapped herself up more tightly, there came the faint sensation of a hand resting on her shoulder.  Its warmth gave her comfort, and she let out a deep, contented breath.

“And man, superior to the creatures only in his cunning.” 

She barely even registered the shouts and the change in music when the long awaited cavemen finally appeared on screen.  In her hazy thoughts, she was turning to the person standing beside her, but in all the gloom Buffy could only make out the outline of the long hair framing the person's face, tousled by the wind.  Two faint yellow lights were reflected in their dark eyes.

She didn’t even make it through the rest of the narration before falling asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :O 10,000 words! Anyway, if you’ve ever seen The Shawshank Redemption, then you’ve seen the movie poster for One Million Years B.C. It’s one of the posters Andy Dufresne uses to hide his escape tunnel from the guards.
> 
> Anyway, you probably have at least a vague idea of what happens next, though exactly what transpires will be a bit different and hopefully not as confusing as “Restless” was ^^


End file.
